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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
DOUGLAS JERROLD
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2008 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/douglasjerrolddr02jerr
DoiTiLAS Jerroli), 1845
{Prom an etching bi/ Kainy Mea-loi's)
Douglas Jerrold
DRAMATIST AND WIT
BY
WALTER JERROLD
WITH PORTRAITS AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL n.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
Printed in Great Britain bt
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
brunswick st., stamford st., s.e. 1,
and bungay, suffolk.
PR
v.a.
CONTENTS
XII An " Annus Mirabilis " of Work — " Mrs.
Caudle" — "Time Works Wonders" —
Platform and Stage. 1845 .
381
XIII The Daily News — Douglas Jerrolds Weekly
Newspaper — ■ Letters — The Whitting-
TON Club. 1846-1847 . . . .428
XIV Splendid Strolling — Mrs. Gamp and
"that Dougladge" — Paris in Revo-
lution. 1847-1848 468
XV " The Wittiest Man in London " — A
Rolling Stone — Trip to Ireland —
Difference with Dickens — Public
Hanging — The Museum Club. 1849 . 497
XVI A Gold Pen— The " Catspaw "— Trip to
the Lakes — Harriet Martineau — Leigh
Hunt's Sneer — Eastbourne. 1850 . 528
XVII "Collected Works" — Sheridan
Knowles: "Child of Nature" — "Re-
tired FROM Business " — A Royal Per-
formance— Lloyd's. 1851-1852 . . 559
XVIII "St. Cupid" at Windsor — Gift to Kos-
suth— A Swiss Holiday — "A Heart
of Gold." 1853-1854 . . . .589
18ba?;i:6
vi CONTENTS
CHAP. PAQI
XIX Nathaniel Hawthorne and Douglas
Jerrold — Boulogne — A Narrow Escape
—Death OF A Beckett. 1855-1856 . . 622
XX The Reform Club — Illness — The End.
1857 645
List of Douglas Jerrold's Plays . . 660
Index 665
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
To face page
Douglas Jerrold, 1845 . . . Frontispiece
(From an engraving by H. Robinson of drawing by Kenny Meadoios)
A " Caudle " Bottle in Doulton-ware . . 384
(From a specimen i?i the jiossession of the Author)
" Splendid Strollers " 408
John Forster as Kitcly ; John Leech as Master Matthew ;
Douglas Jerrold as Master Steiilien ; and Charles Dickens
as Captain Bohadil : in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His
Hitmour.
(From drawings by Kenny Meadows)
Douglas Jerrold, 1847 470
(Fi\jin an engraving by Prior of a photograph by Beard, published May 1,
18U7)
West Lodge, Putney Lower Common . . 513
(From a photograph by Mr. A. S. F. Ackerrnann, B.Sc, taken in 1910,
shortly before the demolition)
Douglas Jerrold, 1852 578
(From an oil piainting by Sir Daniel Macnee, P. U.S.A., in the National
Portrait Gallery)
Douglas Jerrold, 1853 590
(From a marble bust by E. H. Baily, R.A., in the National Portrait
Gallery)
Douglas Jerrold, 1857 648
(From a photograph by Dr. Hugh Diamond, May, 1857)
CHAPTER XII
AN " ANNUS MIRABILIS " OF WORK — " MRS.
CAUDLE " — " TIME WORKS WONDERS " —
PLATFORM AND STAGE
1845
With the year 1845 we reach what may be
regarded, from the point of view of work
accomphshed, the annus mirabilis of Douglas
Jerrold's career. It began with the pubhca-
tion in volume form of PuncKs Complete
Letter Writer ; it saw the inception, course
and completion of the most popular series
which the author contributed to Punch — the
work which has made his name familiar to
thousands unacquainted with any other of
his writings — it saw the production of what is
by many regarded as the most brilliant of his
comedies. Then, too, he was writing week by
week an incessant succession of articles, jeucc
d'esprit and comments on current affairs in
Punch — sometimes as many as a dozen in a
single weekly number, and he had also under-
taken a new and ambitious magazine, himself
contributing month by month an instalment
of a long novel — St. Giles and St. James ^—
and monthly comments in the shape of the
^ Collected Writings, vol. i.
VOL. II. B
382 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Hedgehog Letters '^ on matters of the moment
in that epistolary form of which he had such
ready and varied command.
Douglas Jerrold^s Shilling Magazine marked
a very definite stage in the history of periodical
literature, for its price, boldly made part of
its title, indicated the breaking away from
the orthodox half-crown then charged for
such monthly miscellanies — and fifteen years
before Thackeray started the Cornhill at the
new price, though many writers have carelessly
written of that as " the first of the shillings."
The new venture met with a reception so
cordial — both from press and public— as to
augur well for the future of the undertaking.
From Cambridge came the words : "In the
name of commonsense we thank Mr. Jerrold
for this attempt — a successful one as we hope
and trust — to rescue the public from the mass
of half-crown rubbish, miscalled periodical
literature; and in its stead to give us a good
article, or rather good articles, at a popular
price." From Yorkshire : " We have long
admired the writings of Douglas Jerrold. He
is a hearty and sincere writer. Earnestness is
his leading characteristic. He exposes class
selfishness with a pen of fire ; and loves to strip
off the mask of hypocrisy and fraud. And
when he has laid hold of some hollow windbag
of cant, with what infinite gusto he rips it up.
Meanwhile, he sympathizes most keenly with
the poor, the suffering and the strugghng
1 The Barber's Chair and the Hed^ehoo Letters, 1874.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 383
classes; and it is mainly with the view of
keeping awake the public attention to their
condition that the present magazine has been
started." From Gloucester : " The magazine
opens with the commencement of a tale The
History of St. Giles and St. James, the first
portion of which is written with a vigour and
intensity of description which we have seldom
seen equalled, much less surpassed." From
Scotland — with a double insistence upon value
for money which must have tickled the editor :
*' Anybody who wants a shillings worth of
amusement will naturally go seek it here.
Douglas Jerrold will not disappoint them.
Nobody writes purer English. Every one
must admire his manner, his pathos, and his
philanthropy. Such another handful of original
matter cannot be had at the price."
From all sides came a chorus of welcoming
praise that cannot have failed to delight the
writer, who was finding a new field for the
expression of his strong opinions on social
and political matters — and it may be said that
the political chiefly interested him for its
reaction on the social.
The magazine claimed his earnest attention
—he rejects a friend's article, while admitting
its excellence, because it is " not shillingish,"
so strictly does he seek to maintain the purpose
— and apart from the editorial supervision had
each month to prepare an instalment of his
novel in that hand-to-mouth system of the time.
In the first number of Punch for the year
384 DOUGLAS JERROLD
1845, too, he commenced anonymously those
Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures which began at
once to be talked about, and soon to create a
furore, and on their authorship becoming
known to extend their writer's reputation
as widely as that of Dickens himself. The
popularity of the Lectures sent the circulation
of Punch up it is said by leaps and bounds,
and Margaret Caudle and the lectured Job
became familiar in all mouths. I have been
told that " injunctions were taken out to
prevent copies of Punch being sold at street
corners to the sound of trumpets." The
Lectures were adapted for the stage by more
than one writer on the look-out for a theme
sure of being a " draw," the Caudles re-
appeared in all sorts of forms — even in relief —
from John Leech's picture of the couple in bed
— on stone-ware gin-bottles, and so forth.^
It has been recorded that week by week the
newsagents would ascertain whether there
was " another Caudle " in before deciding
upon how many of the journals they would
require — they were not often disappointed, for
from the first week in January until the second
week in November, when the last " lecture "
appeared, there were but eight weeks in which
Punch came out without Mrs. Caudle.
If it be true that imitation is the sincerest
^ Within recent years I have seen Mrs. Caudle utiHzed
for the purpose of advertising soap and hver pills !
While some years ago a penny edition of the Lectures
was published to advertise another article of domestic
usefulness.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 385
form of flattery, then were the Lectures flattered
in most fulsome fashion, for — presumably while
they were still appearing in Punch — they were
lifted, slightly altered and vulgarized, and
published in eight- page pamphlet form with
the crudest of wood blocks and accompanying
coarse verses as weak in rhythm as they were
wild in rhyme. The title given to this " catch-
penny " piratical perversion was Mrs. Cuddle's
Bedroom Lectures.^
While the Lectures were still appearing
in Punch they were at least twice dramatized,
for during the summer one version made by
C. Z. Barnett was produced at the Princess's
Theatre, and I possess a copy of another by
Edward Stirling which was given at the
Lyceum; while Sterling Coyne is said to
have made yet a third. At the Lyceum
Robert Keeley most effectively personated
Mrs. Caudle. Stirling's version appears to
have been the only one printed, and it consists
largely of an ingenious running together in
dialogue form of sentences from the lectures —
with, of course, a goodly monopoly of the talk
given to Mrs. Caudle herself. " The Caudle
Duet " was versified from Punch and sung
at Rosherville Gardens, and " Mrs. Caudle's
Quadrilles " were " composed and dedicated
to Douglas Jerrold, Esq., by J. H. Tully."
^ A copy of the part containing Lectures, or Lessons,
10 to 15 has recently been added to the British Museum
Library, where it is tentatively dated "1850!" I think
that it is most probable that Mrs. Cuddle was more im-
mediately contemporary with Mrs. Caudle.
VOL, II. c
386 DOUGLAS JERROLD
In course of time the Lectures were translated
into most Continental languages, while within
the last few years several of them have been
published in the universal language, Esperanto.
Jerrold's name came to be known as that of
the author long before the series was com-
pleted. A scrap from a letter written in May
runs : "I wish you would suggest to Jerrold
for me as a Caudle subject (if he pursue that
idea), ' Mr. Caudle has incidentally remarked
that the housemaid is good-looking.' "
Busy as this year was to prove it was also
to be a tragic one in the memory of Douglas
Jerrold, for on February 15 his dear friend,
perhaps the oldest in friendship of all his
intimates, died in the most melancholy cir-
cumstances. In the preceding December
Laman Blanchard had lost his wife, and, worn
down by sorrow and ill-health, he committed
suicide, leaving a young family of two or three
children. The blow was a very severe one to
Jerrold, for the friendship had been long, close
and sincere. Laman Blanchard, a graceful and
tender poet, was evidently a lovable man and
one with a large circle of friends :
" Gentle and kind of heart — of spirit fine ;
The ' Elia ' of our later day — the sage
Who smiled the while he taught and on the page
'Mid wisdom's gold bade gems of wit to shine,"
as one of those friends wrote in a memorial
sonnet. There was much kinship of spirit
between Jerrold and Blanchard, though the
DOUGLAS JERROLD 387
latter lacked the impatient fervour of his
friend, the ready zeal for running atilt at
anything that he regarded as unjust or un-
worthy. In each was a deeply tender strain,
though the world has refused to believe it of
the satirist. The loss of his first literary
friend, the friend with whom he had hoped
and struggled in the early days of apprentice-
ship, was severely felt by Douglas Jerrold.
More than twenty years had passed since, a
couple of high-spirited youths, they had dis-
cussed the possibility of going out to enlist
under Lord Byron in his fighting on behalf of
Greek Independence.
I have heard that Jerrold and Blanchard made
a compact that if it were given to the dead to
appear to the living the one who died first
should revisit the other, and that Jerrold
went out at night on Putney Common and
solemnly invoked the spirit of his friend, but
without success. In May of this year another
poet-friend was lost when Thomas Hood's brave
life untimely closed.
West Lodge, Putney Common, the house
most associated with Jerrold 's memory, was
described as being on the very hem of the
green common, apparently the very utmost
house of the very utmost suburb of London.
It was still the last house on the hem of
the common when it was demolished a few
years ago to make way for a hospital, and
the utmost suburbs had then spread many
miles further up the valley of the Thames. In
388 DOUGLAS JERROLD
this house the study, " into which you entered "
as one visitor put it, " almost directly from a
very comfortable sitting-room, was itself a
most comfortable apartment, well sized, well
lit, well furnished, and the walls well covered
with books; " books, however, which the
author insisted upon having within ready
reach, the shelves being carried no higher than
permitted of easy access to the highest volume,
the wall-space above being occupied with
pictures and busts. There it was that much of
St. Giles and St. Ja7nes and The Caudle Lectures
were written, and much also of the work of the
next few years, for it was in that pleasant old
house, surrounded by the Common and with
an attractive garden at the back, that he made
his home for the longest term. There he was
visited by many of his friends. Always a hard
worker, he maintained in his life as a successful
author the habits which he had formed during
the severe period in which he was making
good the lack of systematic education. His
mornings were devoted to work in the study,
work with which nothing was allowed to
interfere, and which was punctuated rather
than interrupted by his wife or his daughter
Polly quietly taking in a glass of sherry and
biscuit and putting them by his side in the
midpart of the morning. After lunch if there
were visitors in the house the author was free
to be with them, to go rambling on the Common
or on excursions further afield, or it might be
engagements in town that drew him forth.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 389
In the evenings generally he retired again
to his study or would, as his children were
growing up, play cribbage or other games with
them — rigorously pegging to himself, as my
father has told me, the points overlooked by
his opponent in counting up " hand " or " crib."
Varied work was engaging his attention. The
editing of a magazine, the supplying it with
a goodly instalment of a novel month by month,
the writing of one of Mrs. Caudle's nightly
orations each week, and the preparation of a
new play, might of themselves have seemed
sufficient, but there was no diminution in the
author's miscellaneous contributions, from long
political articles to two- or three-line brevities,
to the columns of Punch, with whose career he
was this year indissolubly connected in the
public mind. The editing of a magazine
necessitated the reading of matter submitted
and the corresponding with anxious writers,
or at least with those whose contributions
proved acceptable. In James Hutchison
Stirling, a Scots doctor who had gone as
assistant surgeon to great ironworks at Merthyr
Tydvil, he " discovered," as the literary slang
goes, a young writer who was to achieve fame
as a philosophical thinker, " a man of genius,
rugged and uncontrollable, yet genius that
could not be mistaken for anything else," as
Lord Haldane has recently put it.^ Stirling
has himself recorded that it was the purpose
^ In a preface to James Hutchison Stirling : His Life
and Work, by Amelia Hutchison Stirling, 1912.
390 DOUGLAS JERROLD
breathed in the prospectus of the Shilling
Magazine which moved him to the writing of
his first article and sending it to the editor.
" In a few days after the despatch of my paper
I was surprised by the receipt of a small note
in a hand unknown to me — in a hand altogether
unexampled in any correspondence I had yet
seen. In motion evidently facile, fluent, swift
— swift almost as thought itself — it was yet as
distinct in its peculiar decisive obliquity as if
it had been engraved — sharp and firm in its
exquisitely minute fineness as if the engraving
implement had been the finest of needles."
That note ran as follows :
" January 24,
" West Lodge, Putney.
" Sir, — I have pleasure to inform you that your
paper. The Novelist and the Milliner, will appear in
the next number.
Should you feel inclined to favour me with other
papers, it would be desirable that I should have them
as early as possible in the month .
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Two months later and the editor was ex-
pressing more fully his appreciation of his new
contributor in accepting the proposal of a
further article (The Novel Blowers, or Hot-
pressed Heroes, in the May number of the
magazine) :
" March 19,
' ' West Lodge, Putney Common.
"Dear Sir, — It will give me much pleasure to
receive anything at your hand — your articles on the
DOUGLAS JERROLD 391
influence of novelism, certainly. I, however, feel
it necessary to the increasing influence of the magazine
(and it is increasing) to give as great a variety as
possible to the contents. A reader will be attracted
to a paper — with a new title — which, if carrying the
same heading from month to month, he might turn
from as monotonous. The ' To be continued ' is,
in my opinion, the worst line a magazine can have,
if more than once in the same number. We, too,
are limited for space ; and must fight, as much as
possible, with short swords. I merely say this much,
in the hope of inducing you to vary the titles of the
papers you contemplate. I am very much struck
with the peculiar freshness and vigour of your first
paper; it had thought and sinew in it.
" What you write of the iron district is melancholy
enough — but, I suppose, all in good time. What
each of us has to do in his small sphere, is to hasten the
advent of that ' all ' to the best of his means.
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
This must indeed have been a gratifying
letter for a contributor known but by a single
article to receive, a letter in which may be
recognized something of the cordial generosity
of the writer towards a beginner in the field
of letters. When the recipient met his editor
later it was to have his impression of his
character strengthened, and still later on he
was to pay his tribute to Douglas Jerrold in
the first part of a volume of cordial discrimin-
ating literary essays.^
^ Jerrold, Tennyson and Macaulay, with Other Critical
Essays, 1868.
392 DOUGLAS JERROLD
If) \.\u' s\mufr of Ifiis year Douglas Jerrold
rf;turn(;(l once more to the stage after a long
g;j,f) l.fial, was to be I'ol lowed by a gap yet
longer. It, was on Apiil 20, 1845, tfiat tliere was
prodn(;(;(l .il, llie Ihiymarket Theatre his five-
aet (;orncdy, Titna Works Wonders, a play whieh
is r(!gn,rd(;d ns one oj" \,\\v f)(;st of liis writings
for tlu; singe, in iliiil, Ifiougli there is sparkling
dinJogiH; througlioni, llicre is also a pleasantly
unfolded story, Tlierc; is, of (course, something
of ;). s;iiiri(r bnsis in the eontnisting of the old
f;unily of Sii" (iilbeit Nornum and the new one
of the retired trunk-maker, (ioldthumb, some-
thing of rom;uiee in Sir (iilb(!rt's falling in love
with the gill for whose sake his nephew is
bjiiiished, juid in the love of (i()ldthund)'s son
V\\'\\ for the delightful Ressy Tulip, and
something of the fareieo-p.'ilhetie in the spar-
ring to inatiimonial ends of Miss Tucker, the
(►Id governess, and the tutor, Tiulllcs. In the
opening scene l*\ii\ and Tiulllcs ha\'c arrived
at a. country inn and called for dinner:
'"'' Felix. When I sliulcd, I 1i;kI in my pocket —
TriifJIrs. 1 1 is no nmttcr. Onr preseni, business is
only vvilh the l)ji lance. {Enlcr Ju<\hy xvith wine.)
So ! the j^M-np(>. (Drinks.)
Felix. Will it do?
TriifJlrs. Oh, hi/rlnvny tip|)le. Drink it from n
vine^iu- <'ruet, and 'Iwould p.iss wilhont suspicion.
Juf^hy. Oh, sir, oh ! 'the heads of nobility stop
liere for tliai sherry.
FeliiV. 'Twill do for ine : good or bad, I kiiow little
of wine.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 393
Truffles. Sir, it pains me to hear that any man's
education has been so neglected. Well, what follows
the trout ? Any hashed venison ?
Jugby. No venison, sir ; none nearer than the park,
and that's alive.
Felix. Oh, a rump steak.
Jugby. Only one butcher, sir ; and he doesn't kill
till Saturday.
Truffles. Well, broil a fowl. You've plenty of
fowls ?
Jugby. Dozens, sir ; but just now they're all sitting.
Felix. Pshaw ! Can't have a fowl ?
Jugby. You may if you please, sir : but if you take
the parent I must charge you for the chickens.
Truffles. We left the banquet, sir, to you ; and
we're to have nothing but trout, and trout, too, caught
by my friend ? Fellow, do you think a gentleman is
to be indebted only to his own exertions for his own
dinner ?
Jugby. I've some beautiful bacon, sir. Such pink
and white ! Streaked, sir, like a carnation.
Truffles. Bacon !
Jugby. Ladies of title come here to eat our bacon.
Now, sir, if you'd like some eggs and bacon —
Felix. Delicious ! let's have it.
Truffles. Eggs and bacon ! Is there such a dish ?
Well, for once I'll submit to the experiment. And
landlord, I stay here to-night. Good beds, I hope :
eh ? Real goose ?
Jugby. Oh, sir ! People, sir, who can't get any
rest at home, come here only to sleep with us.
{Exit Jugby.)
Felix. Well, I thank my stars, I can eat anything.
Truffles. I am shocked to hear it, sir; for in that
case half the beauties of creation are lost upon you.
Felix. Are they so ? Then why have I stolen
394 DOUGLAS JERROLD
from Oxford ? Why, this morning, I heard the lark's
first song — saw the first red Hght of day — and as I
gulped the morning air, sweetened from blade and
bush, felt drunk —
Truffles. Drunk, sir ?
Felix. With happiness, that with such a world
about us, poor men, despite of all, have rich estates
and nature's truest title to enjoy them.
Truffles. Yes, the luxury of starving."
Clarence Norman has eloped with Florentine
from Miss Tucker's school, and Florentine has
insisted upon having the company of Bessy.
Postboy troubles lead to their stopping at the
inn, and there the runaways are recaptured
by Miss Tucker — who sees in Prof. Truffles
her old flame. Florentine, being persuaded
that her marriage with Clarence would be his
ruin, returns his picture with the message that
she has gone home at her own wish. Five
years have elapsed before the second act, five
years in which Clarence has wandered dis-
consolately abroad; Florentine having in-
herited money, is living in a cottage with her
whilom governess, Miss Tucker, as companion ;
and the cottage is in the neighbourhood of Sir
Gilbert's mansion, while the prosperous trunk-
maker, Goldthumb, has retired and taken
Parsnip Hall, having sent Felix to Batavia to
turn merchant. There is a pleasant imbroglio
when Florentine, believing herself forgotten
by her one-time lover, is persuaded to promise
to marry his uncle, and when Felix returns
married to Bessy and pretends to be a ship's
DOUGLAS JERROLD 395
officer bringing messages from the (supposed)
absent son to Goldthumb, the Spartan parent
who expatiates upon his wonderful boy Fehx
but will not hear of his being allowed to return
home. The straightening out of the little
tangle forms a delightful comedy, in which the
characters are admirably delineated and their
conversation full of pith and point. The re-
tired trunk-maker, newly arrived, calls upon
Sir Gilbert Norman :
" Goldthumb. Your servant, Sir Gilbert. I take
the freedom of a neighbour to wait upon you. Per-
haps you didn't know that I'd hired Parsnip Hall ?
Sir Gilbert. The glad intelligence is only now
revealed to me. Parsnip Hall is, doubtless, greatly
honoured. (Aside.) My ear never yet deceived me ;
he has the true counter-ring of a shopkeeper.
Goldthumb. As I'm now pretty rich, my wife
declares I must keep a valet ; and you know what a
wife is, Sir Gilbert.
Sir Gilbert. I can guess, by vulgar report.
Goldthumb. Women are all alike. When they're
maids, they're mild as milk, once make 'em wives,
and they lean their backs against their marriage
certificates, and defy you.
Sir Gilbert. And Mrs. Goldthumb illustrates this
marriage truth ?
Goldthumb. Never was woman fuller of illustrations.
Not that she always has her way ; for example, now,
she'd drag me into foreign parts if I would. Bless
you ! she talks as coolly of blue Italy as of a blue
tea-pot.
Sir Gilbert And she is not equally familiar with
both?
396 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Goldthumb. Heaven love you, no ! So, for a time,
I've come here to Hampton ; as I'm determined, before
we travel, to see everything at home — everything,
from the top of Snowdon to the bottom of a coalpit.
For, as the poet says —
Sir Gilbert. Poetry ! And does the master of
Parsnip Hall entertain the divine art ?
Goldthumb. For more than thirty years I was up to
my elbows in it. {Aside.) He hasn't heard that I
was a trunk-maker. And the poet, speaking of wives,
says — ^he says — ha ! I've forgotten the lines, but I
remember the paper perfectly.
Sir Gilbert. The frequent fate of poetry with some
people : insensible to its inspiration they only dwell
on its rags.
Goldthumb. Rags ! Oh, ha ! the paper ! Yes, it
can't be otherwise, you know. (Aside.) A very nice
gentleman, this. Well, I was going to say, before I
quit England —
Sir Gilbert. (Aside.) I would he'd quit England
first.
Goldthumb. I want to see all to be seen. For as
you say in one of your beautiful Parliament speeches —
Sir Gilbert. My speeches !
Goldthumb. Ha ! Sir Gilbert ! they don't make such
speeches now.
Sir Gilbert. Is it possible ? Have you met with
my speeches ?
Goldthumb. Upon my honour, you never published
one that it didn't somehow fall into my hands.
Sir Gilbert. (Aside.) This is strange yet gratifying.
Here have I quitted Parliament in despair — valued
my efforts as at best painstaking failures, and still
to find them touching the public heart and — well,
I feel 'tis not vanity to say, this is gratifying. . . .
And you have really dipped into my little orations ?
DOUGLAS JERROLD 397
Goldthumh. Dipped in 'em ! I've hammered over
'em for hours. And so, I think, I know whole
sentences of 'em.
Sir Gilbert. {Aside.) Now this might be a lesson
to the impatience of fame. Here is a man — un-
cultivated, perhaps, but of strong natural powers —
elevated, dignified by what I have uttered ! Truths,
like seeds, find their way into strange places. There
may be thousands like this honest man, and I know
nothing of 'em.
Goldthumb. Don't you recollect that speech of yours,
with that beautiful thing, where you speak of —
Britannia majestically sitting on her polished trident ?
Sir Gilbert. Pardon me : although I have been in
Parliament, I hope I have never placed my country
in so painful a position.
Goldthumb. Oh, I'll swear to Britannia and the
trident, too ; though, perhaps, I may have put 'em
wrong together. Ha ! yours were beautiful speeches !
I've always said it ; 'twas a disgrace upon the country
you sold so few.
Sir Gilbert. Sir !
Goldthumb. But you've one comfort — they've
travelled, I can tell you. Ha ! ha ! you may thank
me for that."
At length Sir Gilbert recognizes that his
speeches have travelled — as linings of trunks !
Clarence returns home and professes himself
so firm a convert to his uncle's social philosophy
that he is prepared to accept the bride chosen
for him by avuncular care — only to learn later
that not only is Florentine not married as he
had supposed, but that she is living near.
It is not necessary to follow out the course of
398 DOUGLAS JERROLD
the story, but a further passage may be quoted
illustrating the dramatist's management of his
dialogue, in a scene between the ardent old
school-mistress and the reluctant tutor who
has too long kept a watch entrusted to his
hands :
"" Truffles. Madam — Miss Tucker. (Aside.) My
tongue tastes like brass in my mouth; and for the
first time, brass I can make little of. Madam, seven
variegated years have passed since in friendly con-
ference we met.
Miss Tucker. Is it so long, sir ?
Truffles. Yes, madam, I can look at you, and say
full seven years. You may remember this watch?
(Producing it.)
Bessy. Oh, as a child I've seen the inside of it a
thousand times. It's jewelled, and goes upon what
they call a — a duplicate movement.
Truffles. (Aside.) It has gone so once or twice.
Miss Tucker. Well, sir ?
Truffles. I have in vain, madam, sought you to
return it to you. Every year I have hoarded this
repeater with — I may say — growing interest.
Miss Tucker. (Aside.) Ha ! the same honey in his
syllables.
Truffles. It brought you hourly to my mind.
Miss Tucker. I shall forgive him all.
Truffles. For like you it was of precious workman-
ship.
Bessy. (Aside.) And like her, I remember, striking
every quarter. (Retires.)
Truffles. And like you it — it — (Aside) — it bore the
marks of time upon its face. Take it, madam, and
if it went upon a thousand jewels, let it go upon a
thousand and one, and hang it at your heart.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 899
Miss Tucker. Oh, sir, I — I feel I ought not to
take it.
Truffles. {Aside.) I feel so too, but I know you
will. [She takes it.) I said so.
Miss Tucker. Seven years ! Can it be seven years ?
Truffles. Every minute of it : you may trust the
watch — it keeps time like a tax-gatherer. {Aside.)
That ugly business well off my hands, and luckily
before a witness, too, I feel so honest that I'll swagger.
Miss Tucker. Seven years ! Both our hearts have
had many thoughts since then. When we last met,
professor —
Truffles. When we last met, ma'am, my heart was
like a summer walnut — green and tender ; now I can
tell you it's plaguey hard in the shell.
Miss Tucker. {Aside.) Hard in the shell ! Would
he freeze my tenderness ? Oh, that I could laugh like
Florentine ! Ha ! ha ! no doubt. Hard, shrivelled,
mouldy, and not worth cracking — I've known 'em so.
Truffles. Very true, ma'am, not to be eaten by
any woman — with salt or without it. A glorious
safety !
Miss Tucker. His every word's a Whitechapel
needle to my soul — but he shall not see it. Ha !
ha ! ha ! to be sure. We do change. What we
rather like one time, we abominate another.
Truffles. Yes ; for the things themselves change so
too. Now, I'm fond, very fond of nice, plump, ripe
grapes ; but I can't abide 'em when they're shrivelled
into raisins.
Miss Tucker. Raisins ! {Aside.) He means me.
Ha ! ha ! ha ! {Aside.) I shall end in a spasm.
Bessy — {She runs down) — nothing. You should only
hear the professor — so droll — ha ! ha ! — so very,
very droll.
Bessy. {Aside to her.) Don't laugh in that way;
400 DOUGLAS JERROLD
it's cruel. It's punishing nature, and only for wanting
to cry.
Miss Tucker. Cry ! I shall expire with enjoyment.
Oh, you — you witty man ! No — not another word.
Thank you, sir, for my repeater. 'Tis at your hands
an unlooked-for blessing ! Not a word, I pray.
Raisins ! ha ! ha ! ha ! {Aside) the walnut -hearted
barbarian. Raisins !
{Exit with Bessy into garden.)
Truffles. Humph ! Strange is the love of woman :
it's like one's beard ; the closer one cuts it the stronger
it grows : and both a plague. She has no money,
and I can't afford to go gratis. Well, if she should
break her heart, I think I could survive the calamity.
That watch has been ticking seven years on my
conscience. 'Tis gone, I can now look without
qualms at a church clock and a policeman."
There are many terse, pertinent bits of
humour, wit and wisdom scattered throughout
the play :
" It seems but a few weeks since she was a wild
thing running about in a pinafore, and eating bread
and butter. . . . Yes ; and you'll think the innocent
creatures will go on eating it for years to come, when
somebody whispers ' bride-cake ' — and down drops
the bread and butter."
" If a poor man talks reason, you gentlemen call it
impertinence."
" Quite — quite a genius. How he'll ever get his
bread and pay his way, heaven knows ! "
" When minds are not in unison, the words of love
itself are but the rattling of chains that tells the
victim it is bound."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 401
" As we know nothing certain of her, it's only
nat'ral to think the worst."
" True love never reckons, but jumps at once to the
sum total."
" The highest families have had their bend sinister.
Indeed sometimes the bend has been to them their
best support. Just as, now and then, carpenters get
their greatest strength in crooked timber."
" It's never comfortable waiting for dead men's
shoes — they so often pinch when one gets 'em."
The play added another to Jerrold's many
stage successes. Shortly after its production
the author journeyed to Birmingham to fulfil
an engagement which he must have accepted
with much trepidation, as he was not at all
experienced in platform appearances. This
was to take the chair at the annual con-
versazione of the Birmingham Poljrtechnic
Institution, as Charles Dickens had done in
the previous year. This seems to have been
the first occasion on which Jerrold occupied
such a position, and though he made two or
three efforts to overcome his platform-nervous-
ness he never did so with any real success, and
it was with great reluctance that he allowed
himself to be persuaded into such a position
again. It was on May 7, 1845, that he visited
Birmingham, and on the way to the hall of
the Institution was met by " operatives in
the fancy trade," who through their spokes-
man presented him with a gold ring with
an onyx shield, and read to him the following
address :
VOL, II. D
402 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Dear Sir, — Representing as we do the operatives
engaged in the Birmingham fancy trades, we take
the opportunity of your visit to Birmingham to
express to you our admiration of your character and
writings, embodying as they do sentiments of justice,
exposure of tyranny, and defence of that class to
which we ourselves belong : expressed, too, in that
extraordinary style of satire, pathos and truth to
which no other writer has ever yet approached. We
beg to offer, as a mark of our esteem, a humble
tribute to your worth, the intrinsic value of which,
though small, we have no doubt will be accepted
with the same feelings that it is offered, namely, those
of kindness and affection, proving that the working
men can feel kind and grateful to the kind and
talented advocate of their often miserable position ;
and, owing to the progress of education thereby
giving to them the means of reading works like your
own, they are enabled to appreciate the kindness of
one that has so long and so ably contended for their
welfare.
" That you may long enjoy health, happiness and
prosperity is the prayer of ourselves and those we
represent.
" S. F. NiCKLIN,
" Joseph Stinton,
" James Wolley,
" Charles Palmer."
It was the first occasion on which the author
had received any such public tribute, and he
was deeply moved as he told the deputation
so in a few words of thanks. The episode
which might have been but a pleasing incident
to one more experienced in public appearances,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 403
touched Jerrold so as to add yet more to the
extreme nervousness with which he approached
his duties as chairman. And the nervousness
was not that of the actor who can master it
and use it to the ends of his oratory, it was
that which — for he was not skilled in disguising
his feelings — was manifest to those around him.
A contemporary account of the meeting said :
" In Douglas Jerrold there is the plain simplicity
of a child, with all the mental reserve of careful
thought. As he rose to speak he was timid and over-
powered ; not from any feeling of vainglory — for he
seems far above any such feeling — but from the force
of an overwhelming sense of a burst of public kindness
and heartfelt appreciation of his good deeds — his
talented and benevolent actions — for which, on his
first public appearance before such a company, he
was not at all prepared."
As chairman it fell to him to be the first to
address the mass of people who thronged the
hall and who had received him with over-
whelming acclamation. He rose and sought
to overcome that awful feeling, which some
never can overcome, of facing a crowd, every
individual in which is awaiting the thing to be
said. It was but a hesitating speech that he
succeeded in uttering, a hesitating speech,
and one brought to an abrupt conclusion :
" Ladies and Gentlemen, already embarrassed
by the novelty of my position — for I am unskilled
in the routine of public meetings — the welcome which
you have just awarded me renders me even less
404 DOUGLAS JERROLD
capable of the duty which your partial kindness has
put upon me. But I know — I feel that I am among
friends — and, so knowing, I am assured in the faith
of your indulgence. Ladies and gentlemen, when I
look throughout this hall, thronged as it is by the
most valuable class of the community, I cannot but
think that the great, the exalted cause which we meet
here to celebrate this evening is strongly beating
at the hearts of the men and women of Birmingham.
Happily the prejudice has gone by, with a good deal
of the lumber of those ' good old times ' which certain
moral antiquaries affect to deplore (though why I
know not, except, indeed, it is because they are old,
just as other antiquaries affect to fall into raptures
with the ruse of the thumbscrew or the steel boot,
although it strikes me they would be very loath to
live, even for a minute, under the activity of either) —
the prejudice is happily gone by which made it
necessary to advocate the usefulness of institutions
for the education of the masses. Ladies and gentle-
men, this is my first essay in public, and I feel so
overcome, not only with your welcome here now, but
with the welcome I have previously received, that I
really feel quite unnerved and unable to proceed.
I am sorry, most sorry, that it should have fallen to
your lot to have experienced the first of my deficiencies ;
but so it is : I cannot help it. So far as I have gone
I thank you for listening to me ; but I assure you at
the present time I am quite unable to proceed any
further."
Others were on the platform supporting the
chairman who were far more experienced in
the command of ready speech for a crowded
audience, men such as the Rev. George
Dawson, to whom the platform was as it were
DOUGLAS JERROLD 405
the natural place in which they could best
find self-expression. George Dawson, Richard
Spooner (member of Parliament for Birming-
ham), and the mayor, rose and addressed the
meeting, and each but added to the em-
barrassment of the chairman by fresh tribute to
his talents. At length he rose again and braced
himself afresh to the unaccustomed ordeal :
" Ladies and Gentlemen, if before I suddenly
felt myself unable to give expression to my thoughts,
how can I now be expected to remedy that defect,
absolutely oppressed as I am by a sense of the un-
worthiness of the encomiums which have been
heaped upon me ? I cannot — I will not attempt to
do it. But here, standing with all my deficiencies
upon my head, I feel most strongly that the time
will come — shall come, if I know anything of myself —
when I will prove myself more worthy of the tolerance
I have received at your hands. Some mention has
been made of a certain periodical with which I am
unworthily connected, and it is really out of justice
to others that I ought for some moments to consider
that topic. It is the good fortune of every one —
good fortune I will not say — it is, however — the
fortune of every one connected with that periodical
to receive, at times, a great deal more praise than is
justly his due. I am in that predicament this evening.
I could wish that two or three of my coadjutors were
here that the praise which is so liberally bestowed
on that work might be shared among them. Mrs.
Caudle ! Your honourable member has said he does
not believe there is a Mrs. Caudle in all Birmingham.
I will even venture to go further than he : I do not
think there is a Mrs. Caudle in the whole world. I
406 DOUGLAS JERROLD
really think the whole matter is a fiction — a wicked
fiction, intended merely to throw into finer contrast
the trustingness, the beauty, the confidence, and the
taciturnity of the sex. Ladies and gentlemen, I
most respectfully thank you again for the tolerance
with which you have borne me. I can only again
repeat the conviction that the time will come when
I shall be more able to give expression to my gratitude
— ^to my sense of your kindness — than I feel myself
now enabled to do."
Douglas Jerrold is said to have felt mor-
tified at the way in which he had failed as
a public speaker, and to have returned some-
what disappointed with himself from Birming-
ham, though resolved, we may well believe,
to overcome the platform-nervousness which
attacks some men when called upon to address
a public gathering.
In June came one of those excursions in the
company of a few fit friends in which he
delighted. Charles Dickens and his family
were coming home after a lengthy sojourn
in Italy, and Douglas Jerrold, John Forster,
and Daniel Maclise set out in company to
meet the party at Brussels and spend a week
with them before all returned home together.
They " passed a delightful week in Flanders,"
Brussels, Antwerp and elsewhere — but un-
fortunately there are no particulars of the
excursion other than the words of Dickens
written a dozen years later :
" We all travelled about Belgium for a little while
and all came home together. He was the delight of
DOUGLAS JERROLD 407
the children all the time, and they were his delight.
He was in his most brilliant spirits, and I doubt if he
were ever more humorous in his life. But the most
enduring impression he left upon us who were grown
up was that Jerrold, in his amiable capacity of being
easily pleased, in his freshness, in his good-nature,
in his cordiality, and in the unrestrained openness of
his heart, had quite captivated us."
A note from Jerrold written the day after
his return to Putney barely refers to the
excursion which must have come as a delightful
interlude of recreation in a very busy year.
*' July 4 [1845],
" West Lodge, Putney.
" Dear Sir, — My absence from home must account
for my tardy reply to your letters. Herewith I
forward what, I fear, has no value whatever save that
which it may derive from your partiality. Will you
oblige me by giving my remembrances to Mr. and
Mrs. Francis Clark?
" As an admirer of Mr. Dickens, you will be glad
to hear that I met him in excellent health a few days
since at Brussels, returning with him to London
yesterday.
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Who the " admirer of Mr. Dickens " was
to whom this note was addressed does not
appear. Back at Putney again the author
was busy writing for Punch, with his magazine,
and his serial story, but with all this work was
also finding time for play. Probably during
the stay in Belgium the project later to take
408 DOUGLAS JERROLD
shape as the " Splendid Strollers " had been
discussed and the merits of various pieces in
which the strollers should appear canvassed.
Certainly within three weeks of the return, as
we learn from Forster, the play had been fixed
upon, the parts cast, and negotiations for a
theatre entered into.
" We had chosen Every Man in his Humour, with
special regard to the singleness and individuality of
the ' humorous ' portrayed in it ; and our own
company included the leaders of a journal [Punch]
then in its earliest years, but already not more re-
nowned as the most successful joker of jokes yet
known in England, than famous for the exclusive
use of its laughter and satire for objects the highest
or most harmless which makes it still so enjoyable a
companion to mirth -loving right-minded men. Mac-
lise took earnest part with us, and was to have acted,
but fell away on the eve of the rehearsals ; and
Stanfield, who went so far as to rehearse Downright
twice, then took fright and also ran away; but
Jerrold, who played Master Stephen, brought with
him Lemon, who took Brainworm; Leech, to whom
Master Matthew was given ; A Beckett, who had
condescended to the small part of William; and
Mr. [Percival] Leigh, who had Oliver Cob. I played
Kitely, and Bobadil fell to Dickens." ^
Jerrold had, as has been seen, made his
appearance on the stage nearly ten years
earlier, but the work of the actor did not
fascinate him as it did his friend Charles
* The Life of Charles Dickens. By John Forster,
Book V, chap. i.
" Splkndii) Strollkrs "
John Forster as Kitcl;/ ; .Icihii l>eech as MasUr Mattheir ; Douglas Jemild as Mmin- Stephen
Charles Dickens as Captain Bobadil : in Ben Jonson's Bverii ilan in Jlis Humou):
(^From drawings hy Kenny Meadoics)
DOUGLAS JERROLD 409
Dickens — and it may well be believed that it
was Dickens's magnetic enthusiasm which
finally kept the remarkable company together
and led to its notable triumphs. When Maclise
and Stanfield fell away Jerrold's enlisting of
four of " the Punch men " must have proved
most helpful. Dickens, in appealing to George
Cattermole, the artist, to take the part which
Clarkson Stanfield had abandoned, said that
Stanfield had already as much as he could
manage in attending to the scenery and
carpenters. Rehearsals went merrily on and
the performance was duly announced to take
place at Miss Kelly's Theatre on September 20.
Jerrold, writing to Mrs. Cowden Clarke a few
days before that date, said :
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — In haste I send the
accompanying. ' Call no man happy until he is
dead,' says the sage. Never give thanks for tickets
for an amateur play till the show is over. You don't
know what may be in store for you — and for us !
Alas, regardless of their doom,
The little victims play — (or try to play).
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The performance, and those which succeeded
it, have been dealt with in books on Dickens
and elsewhere, so that here it may be as well to
keep mainly to the one actor with whom this
volume is concerned. It was, indeed, a re-
markable cast, and the contemporary news-
papers gave many personal notes on the actors :
410 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Douglas Jerrold is idolized by the philan-
thropist for his unflinching advocacy of the
rights and amelioration of the poor; by the
moralist for the magnitude of the truths
conveyed in his bitter and relentless sarcasm;
by the less thoughtful public for the plenitude
and pungency of his wit " ; " Mr. Douglas
Jerrold is one of the most powerful supporters
of Punch and the first comic dramatist of the
day " ; such are representative of the personal
notes which told of the distinguished per-
formers.
When the play was produced it proved a
most gratifying success, and the criticisms were
of the most laudatory character.
Said one writer, " Mr. Dickens makes the
' stricken deer ' [Bobadil] the veriest hangdog
and craven that can be imagined ; a sneaking,
pitiful fellow, above whom even Master Stephen
of the stolen cloak towers heroically. Having
mentioned this gull, we may briefly state that
Mr. Douglas Jerrold played his humours to
perfection, not only directly where he has
something to say or do, but in the nicest
byplay of look, gesture, and attitude." Jer-
rold's performance met, indeed, with the
heartiest treatment. His was, said one critic,
" as a conception the truest and most original
of them all " ; another, " Jerrold's, indeed,
was one of the best personations of the night " ;
another that he " exhibited remarkable finish
and meaning in his by- play — that part of the
actor's business often so unaccountably neg-
DOUGLAS JERROLD 411
lected on the stage." The writer of the notice
in The Times and the Annual Register summed
his performance up thus : " Mr. Jerrold's
Master Stephen was a fine study; the con-
ception of the by-play was perfect. The only
objection was that the real intelligence of the
man could not be completely concealed in the
' country gull.' "
But if Jerrold had the ability of the actor
he had no abiding taste for the footlights and
did not make many appearances with the
company in the success of which Charles
Dickens took so great a pride. In November
the play was given a second time, at the St.
James's Theatre, for the benefit of the Sana-
torium, when Prince Albert and the Duke of
Cambridge were among the audience. At
Christmas the company presented for the bene-
fit of Miss Kelly, and at her theatre, Fletcher's
Elder Brother, when " Douglas Jerrold gave
to the faithful servant Andrew just the kind
of quaint gravity natural to a shrewd quick-
witted man of plain sense and earnest feeling,
who had acquired a reverence for learning
through love for his master."
John Forster was the one member of the
party who seems to have troubled to keep the
congratulatory letters which he received, and
from those letters a few words may here be
cited. Said Bryan Waller Procter : " The
play was excellent— i. e. it was admirably got
up, and Kitely, Bobadil, Master Stephen, and
Brainworm topped their party to perfection."
412 DOUGLAS JERROLD
John Oxenford, the dramatic critic of The
Times, wrote, " How capitally you acted — you
and Dickens, and Lemon, and Jerrold — Jerrold
incalculably better than before. But what
an audience ! Never did I see such frigidity.
I should have given them a wipe had I not
feared to damage the cause." George Lillie
Craik : "I think, too, there was a subtle
charm in the intermixture of the substance
with the shadow — the radiation of the Dickens,
the Forster, the Jerrold, the Leech, amongst
the Bobadil, the Kitely, the Master Stephen,
the Master Matthew, etc. . . . How admir-
able Master Stephen's side-acting was. The
feeling of the character oozed out of him at
every point of his frame — legs and arms, hands
and feet, shoulders, chin, nose, eyebrows, tips
of the ears, as well as spoke in his voice and
flashed from his eyes." George Raymond :
" If Jerrold would play Sir Andrew Aguecheek
he would be about the best on the stage."
If the amateur performers were to be thus
praised there was not to be lacking an opposite
note, for on a further performance being
announced a year later there appeared what
purported to be an " Advertisement Extra-
ordinary " in some periodical, in the course
of which it was said : '' Every resorter to the
stalls and boxes will be expected to purchase
a copy of either Dombey, Punch or Jerrold^s
Weekly Newspaper' ; as next to benevolence
it is in aid of those works the chief actors
appear ! "
DOUGLAS JERROLD 413
During this autumn Jerrold made a second
venture as a public speaker, when he accepted
an invitation to be present at a great soiree
of the Manchester Athenaeum held in the Free
Trade Hall. By then, says Charles Knight,
who was present :
" It was almost universally known " who was the
author of the Caudle Lectures, " so that when Douglas
Jerrold rose in the Free Trade Hall to address an
assembly of three thousand people, the shouts were
so continuous that the coolest platform orator might
have lost for a moment his presence of mind. I
looked upon the slight figure bending again and
again, as each gust of applause seemed to overpower
him and make him shrink into himself. Mr. Sergeant
Talfourd was in the chair, and had delivered an
eloquent address which the local reporters called
' massive,' and which by some might have been
deemed ' heavy.' The audience was perhaps some-
what impatient even of the florid language of the
author of loti, for they wanted to hear the great wit
who sat on the edge of the platform, and whose
brilliant eye appeared as if endeavouring to penetrate
the obscure distance of that vast hall, the extremity
of which he might possibly have calculated his some-
what feeble voice would be unable to reach. When
the moment had at last arrived in which he was called
upon to give utterance to his thoughts, he hesitated,
rambled into unconnected sentences, laboured to
string together some platitudes about education,
and was really disappointing, even to common
expectations, until the genius of the man attained
the ascendancy. Apostrophizing the enemies of
education, he exclaimed : ' Let them come here and
we will serve them as Luther served the Devil —
414 DOUGLAS JERROLD
we will throw inkstands at their heads.' The effect
was marvellous not only upon his hearers but upon
the speaker. He recovered his self-possession and
succeeded in making a tolerable speech."
Again was Jerrold a victim to rheumatism —
possibly the low-lying site of his house made
him suffer more particularly during these
years at Putney. On December 12, 1845, he
wrote to Henry F. Chorley, an able if some-
what irascible man of letters who never
attained to popularity, though long a familiar
figure in literary circles :
" My Dear Sir, — I should have answered yours
a day or two since, but I can't write well in bed,
whereto my old fiend rheumatism had nailed me.
I've just shaken him off. I waited that the enclosed
might grow to larger amount ; that it has not done
so this month is wholly the blunder of the printer.
On Saturdays I am always compelled to dine in the
City. I fear that we must defer our chat at your
fireside until after Xmas : for what with the magazine,
with Punch, a new comedy, etc., etc. — I am made
pretty well a slave to the ' dead wood.'
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
In the autumn of 1845 was published a
poem which met with a cordial reception,
though it has, it may well be believed, since
become forgotten, or remains known only to
those who stroll into the byways of literature,
a poem which is mentioned here because it
seems that it was Douglas Jerrold who first
DOUGLAS JERROLD 415
recognized its merits and was instrumental
in finding its publisher. This was The Pur-
gatory of Suicides, by Thomas Cooper, the
Chartist. Cooper was a self-educated man
who, having apprenticed himself to a Gains-
borough shoemaker at the age of fifteen, set
himself to learn Latin, Greek, Hebrew and
French, so that in 1829 he was able to become
a schoolmaster, and later a country journalist.
In 1840 he returned to his native Leicester,
and became leader of the local Chartists. In
1842 he was arrested on a charge of conspiracy
and sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
Out of his imprisonment grew the " prison
rhyme " of The Purgatory of Suicides — in which
are given the utterances of suicides from
Sardanapalus to Castlereagh — which he brought
to London and for which, judging by his own
account, he vainly sought a publisher^ — he had
gone for assistance to this end to Disraeli,
Forster and Harrison Ainsworth without effect
— until a friend gave him an introduction to
Jerrold. Cooper's story of the circumstance
may be given as testimony to Douglas Jerrold 's
readiness to help a fellow author :
" ' Under the postern of Temple Bar, I ran against
John Cleave ; and he caught hold of me in surprise.
" ' Why, what's the matter, Cooper ? ' he asked ;
' you look very miserable, and you seem not to know
where you are ! '
" ' Indeed,' I answered, ' I am very uneasy; and
I really did not see you when I ran against you.'
" ' But what is the matter ? ' he asked again.
416 DOUGLAS JERROLD
"'I owe you three-and-thirty pounds,' said I;
' and I owe a deal of money to others ; and I cannot
find a publisher for my book [The Purgatory of
Suicides]. Is not that enough to make a man un-
easy ? '
" And then I told him how I and Macgowan had
just received a refusal from the publishing house in
the Strand (Chapman & Hall). More I needed not to
tell him ; for I had told him all my proceedings from
the time I left prison, and ever found him an earnest
and kind friend.
" ' Come along with me,' said he ; ' and I'll give
you a note to Douglas Jerrold; he'll find you a
publisher.'
" ' Do you know Douglas Jerrold ? ' I asked.
" ' Know him ! ' said the fine old Radical publisher;
* I should think I do. I've trusted him for a few
halfpence for a periodical, many a time, when he was
a printer's apprentice. If he does not find you a
publisher, I'll forfeit my neck. Jerrold's a brick ! '
" So I went to the little shop in Shoe Lane, whence
John Cleave issued so many thousands of sheets of
Radicalism and brave defiance of bad governments
in his time; and he gave me a hearty note of com-
mendation to Jerrold, and told me to take it to the
house on Putney Common. I went without delay,
and left Cleave's note, and the part of the Purgatory
which Macgowan had printed, with Mrs. Jerrold,
and intimated that I would call again in three or four
days.
" I called, and received a welcome so cordial, and
even enthusiastic, that I was delighted. The man of
genius grasped my hand, and gazed on my face, as
I gazed on him, with unmistakeable pleasure.
" ' Glad to see you, my boy ! ' said he ; ' your
poetry is noble — it's manly ; I'll find you a publisher.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 417
Never fear it. Sit you down ! ' he cried, ringing the
bell ; ' what will you take ? Some wine ? Will you
have some bread and cheese ? I think there's some
ham — we shall see.'
" It was eleven in the forenoon : so I was in no
humour for eating or drinking. But we drank two
or three glasses of sherry ; and were busy in talk till
twelve.
" ' I had Charles Dickens here last night,' said he,
' and he was so taken with your poem that he asked
to take it home. 1 have no doubt that he will return
it this week, and then I will take it into the town,
and secure you a publisher. Give yourself no un-
easiness about it. I'll write to you in a few days, and
tell you it is done.'
" And he did write in a few days, and directed me
to call on Jeremiah How, 132, Fleet Street, who
published Jerrold's Cakes and Ale, etc., etc. Mr. How
agreed at once to be my publisher."
Before the close of the year The Purgatory
of Suicides was duly published by Jeremiah
How. The book had a gratifying reception,
enjoying the distinction of running into several
editions, and as one critic— probably William
J. Linton — said :
" A Government should take heed when its ' gaol-
birds ' sing such songs — coming to such a conclusion
as this —
" Well, let me bide my time ; and then atone
For that real crime, the failing to arouse
Slaves against tyrants — I may yet, before life's close."
Surely ' there is something rotten ' when ' felony '
discourses thus."
VOL. II. E
186326
418 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Another publication must be mentioned here,
though the subject is dealt with more fully
in an earlier volume. It was towards the
close of this year that Alfred Bunn, having
long been one of the pet " butts " of Punch,
enlisted some helpers and retaliated by the
publication of A Word with Punch, No. 1,
*' to be continued if necessary." This publica-
tion was got up as a colourable imitation of
Punch, and in it the writers principally attacked
Douglas Jerrold, Mark Lemon and Gilbert a
Beckett, the three men who were most widely
known in connection with Punch. There had
been various changes on the journal since the
start of the paper about four years earlier,
changes not always so amicably arranged, it
would seem, as to preclude the possibility of ill-
feeling. Thus when Bunn set about having a
hit at the chief Punch men, in quite excusable
resentment of the incessant gibes at himself,
he found ready helpers. Albert Smith, who
had left Punch in the beginning of 1844, "in
consequence of being unable to agree with
Mr. Mark Lemon," is said to have been one of
these helpers in preparing the letterpress of the
attack, while the woodcuts were produced under
the care of Ebenezer Landells, who had not
only been one of the prime movers in founding
Punch, but had at one time been the principal
proprietor. There was perhaps more of the
bludgeon than the rapier employed in this
satirizing of the satirists, but the skit served
Bunn's purpose, for Punch thereafter resisted
DOUGLAS JERROLD 419
the temptation to make fun of him and his
poetry. One of Bunn's assistants in the matter
both with letterpress and pictm-es was a youth
who was destined to win a notable place for
himself as a journalist — George Augustus Sala.
Sala's own account indicates that he had a
goodly share in the production of A Word with
Punch — though he had not completed his
eighteenth year at the time of its publication.
His story of the business runs :
" I drew on wood a series of caricatures, which were
certainly of a nature not very complimentary to the
editor of Punch and his staff. For example, Douglas
Jerrold, who was characterized as ' Wronghead,' was
drawn with a body of a serpent, wriggling and writhing
in a very unhandsome manner. ... In addition to
the crime of which I was really guilty, that of having
drawn Lemon, Jerrold and A Beckett as a potboy,
as a snake, and the Enemy of Mankind respectively,
I was also debited with having further co-operated
with the ' poet ' Bunn by writing a considerable
quantity of the letterpress for the Word with Punch.
As for Jerrold, I do not think that he cared much
about the skit. I heard that he once alluded to me
as ' a graceless young whelp,' which possibly at the
time I was ; but we afterwards grew to be very good
friends."
The same season that saw A Word with
Punch saw also another of the hunch-backed
humorist's victims turn. This was James
Silk Buckingham, traveller, member of Parlia-
ment and starter of the Athenceum, who had
420 DOUGLAS JERROLD
founded a literary and social club, the British
and Foreign Institute, which Punch persist-
ently ridiculed as the " Literary and Foreign
Destitute." He published an Appeal Against
Punch in which he pointed out that Jerrold
had at his own request been elected a member
of the Institute, but had refused to take up
his membership. This was because " he under-
stood that the Institute was conducted very
differently from what had been promised."
Acknowledging a copy of the Appeal, one of
those against whom it was levelled wrote :
" West Lodge, Putney Lower Common,
"Nov. 20, 1845.
" Sir, — I have to acknowledge the receipt of a
copy of your Appeal Against ' Punch.' A sense of
justice will, assuredly, dictate a most elaborate
notice of the document.
" I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Towards the close of this year Mary Cowden
Clarke ^ completed the great work by which
she is likely longest to be remembered — that
Concordance to Shakespeare which was the
loving task of many years — and duly received
congratulations, brief but hearty, from her
friend Jerrold :
^ Mrs. Cowden Clarke wrote many pleasant reminis-
cences of her and her husband's friendship with Douglas
Jerrold in Recollections of Writers, and also in her
letters to Robert Balmanno which were published (in
America only) as Letters to an Enthusiast in 1902.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 421
" West Lodge, Putney Common,
" December 5 [1845].
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — I congratulate you and
the world on the completion of your monumental
work. May it make for you a huge bed of mixed
laurels and banknotes,
" On your first arrival in Paradise you must expect
a kiss from Shakespeare — even though your husband
should happen to be there.
" That you and he, however, may long make for
yourselves a Paradise here, is the sincere wish of —
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Two years later, apropos of an honour then
done to Mary Cowden Clarke in recognition
of her loving Shakespearean work, Douglas
Jerrold wrote in his newspaper :
" We may add of our own knowledge that in
consequence of a Queen presiding over us as in
Shakespeare's time Mrs. Cowden Clarke intended to
dedicate the work [the Concordance] to her present
Majesty; and so, as we think, to bestow a compli-
ment, but it was refused. It would surely not have
been so with the Queen who delighted in The Merry
Wives of Windsor. ^^
This chapter may close with the sequel
to an anecdote that belonged to Jerrold's
Earnest days of thirty years earlier. We saw
that the sailor who had been left in charge
of the boy while the Captain was ashore
had, under cover of going to make some
small purchases, taken the opportunity to
desert. It was somewhere about this year
422 DOUGLAS JERROLD
of 1845 that the whilom "volunteer," walking
eastward along the Strand, was suddenly-
struck with the form and face of a baker who,
with a basket of bread on his back, was examin-
ing something in a shop window. There was
no mistake, despite the lapse of years, and
walking sharply to the baker's side Jerrold
rapped him sharply on the shoulder, saying —
" I say, my friend, don't you think you've
been rather a long time about that fruit? "
The deserter's jaw fell. Thirty years had
not destroyed the fear of punishment. He
remembered both the fruit and the boy-officer
who had wished for it, for he exclaimed :
" Lor' ! is that you, sir? " while that one-time
officer, never so little of a boy that he could
not enjoy a joke, went laughingly on his way.
CHAPTER XIII
WEEKLY NEWSPAPER — LETTERS — THE
WHITTINGTON CLUB
1846—1847
The year 1845 had been a remarkable one
in the working hfe of Douglas Jerrold, a year
in which he had returned to the stage with one
of the most notable of his long series of
comedies, in which he had contributed to
Punch that work which had done most to
stamp his popularity, and in which he had
started a new magazine that bid fair to be a
considerable success, and had written for it a
large part of his longest novel. The following
year was to be scarcely less remarkable, and
was to emphasize the author's passage to that
work with which his later years were to be
more especially occupied. The growth of the
newspaper as an influence of public opinion
was becoming more notable, and it was,
perhaps, a natural development that the " pur-
pose " which had inspired the starting of
Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine should look
to the wider field of journalism.
During the closing months of 1845 there had
been matured a project for starting a new daily
423
424 DOUGLAS JERROLD
paper with Charles Dickens as editor, Douglas
Jerrold as sub- editor, and John Forster,
Richard Hengist Home (as " Irish Commis-
sioner "), and other of the circle of friends on
the statf. That paper — the Daily News — duly
commenced on January 21, 1846, and started
on its long and honourably prosperous career.
The task of producing a daily paper was not
suited to either Dickens or Jerrold. Within
three weeks the former, " tired to death and
quite worn out," relinquished the editorship.
How long Jerrold remained I cannot say for
certain, but it was probably less than three
months, for the following note to Forster— who
had succeeded Dickens in the editorship — evi-
dently indicates his breaking with the paper :
" April 19.
" My dear Forster, — The ' therefore valueless ' is
my own inference, not your words. At your wish,
I have written to B[radbury] & E[vans], for whom I
have so much regard that I regret the necessity
(which your letter places upon me) of quitting them
in their time of stress,
" Ever yours, my dear Forster,
" D. Jerrold."
Douglas Jerrold's connection with the jour-
nal— like that of Dickens and Forster — was
commemorated when the present offices in
Bouverie Street were built, by the placing of
his bust among the sculptured ornamentation
where those " heads of the people " who stood
for journalistic Liberalism in the mid-part of
DOUGLAS JERROLD 425
the nineteenth century are to be seen to-day
by the upward-looking passers along this busy
street of newspaperdom.
Dickens was already wearying of the task
when, but a little more than a week after the
Daily News had been started, he wrote to
Forster saying that he had been revolving plans
for quitting the paper : " Shall we go to
Rochester to-morrow week (my birthday), if
the weather be, as it surely must be, better? "
That the weather justified Dickens's expecta-
tions may be gathered from Forster's brief
description of the week-end trip which was
made to the district which some years later
was to be that of Dickens's home. The party
that went to Rochester consisted of Dickens,
his wife and sister, Daniel Maclise, Douglas
Jerrold and John Forster; they made their
headquarters at the Bull Inn, spent the
Saturday in visiting the ruins of the Norman
castle. Watts' Charity (which was later to be
the centre of the touching story of Richard
Doubledick) and the Chatham fortifications,
and the Sunday in Cobham Church and
Cobham Park.
The magazine and Punch appear to have
been Jerrold's chief occupation during the
early part of this year, but the experience on
the Daily News had perhaps something to do
with setting his mind towards the establishing
of a newspaper which should give him a free
opportunity of expressing himself on the social
and political matters of the day. Punch
426 DOUGLAS JERROLD
afforded a certain limited opportunity, and
the magazine gave the chance for enunciating
general principles, but he needed some vehicle
which should permit of instant treatment of
subjects as they arose, and that already he
was looking towards a paper of his own we
may gather from a remark of Thomas Cooper's,
that in the spring of 1846 Douglas Jerrold was
talking of the starting of a new weekly journal.
He appears to have contemplated making a
commencement in the following year, but the
prospect of being forestalled in the project
caused it to be begun in the summer.
In the spring of this year we get a glimpse
of Douglas Jerrold at home at Putney from
James Hutchison Stirling, who then visited
him at West Lodge for the first time. Stirling
had been, in modern journalistic parlance,
" found " by Jerrold for his magazine, and
he says that his host received him with,
" Why, I had you in mind this very day,"
and proceeded to speak of the projected news-
paper. The writer went on to describe his
host's appearance with some particularity :
" Jerrold surprised me by the exceeding shortness
of his stature, which was aggravated also by a con-
siderable stoop. I do not think he could have stood
much over five feet. He was not thin, meagre or
fragile to my eye, however. His foot seemed a good,
stout, stubby foot, the hand not particularly small ;
and he had quite a stout appearance across the
chest. Then the face was not a small one : he had
a particular broad look across the jaw, partly owing,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 427
probably, to the complete absence of whisker. The
upper lip was long, but the mouth remarkably well
formed; flexible, expressive, moving in time to
every thought and feeling. I fancied it could be
sulky, and very sulky too. But I said as much when
I described his character as Scotch : for what Scotch-
man— ourselves inclusive — is not sulky? His nose
was aquiline and bien accuse. His blue eyes, naif
as violets, but quick as light, took quite a peculiar
character from the bushy eyebrows that overhung
them. Then the forehead, well relieved by the masses
of brown hair carelessly flung back, was that of
genius — smooth and round, and delicate, and moder-
ately high; for gigantic brows, colossal fronts, are
the perquisites only of milkmen and greengrocers.
" Altogether, the stature excepted, Jerrold's
physique was such as any man might be proud of,
and corresponded very admirably to the rapid, frank,
free soul that worked within it. He was closely,
smoothly shaved, and showed not a vestige of whisker.
He was well, and even, I thought, carefully clothed ;
his linen scrupulously clean, and the trousers strapped
quite trimly down on the patent-leather boot."
After this description of the appearance of
Douglas Jerrold as seen by a sympathetic
visitor meeting him for the first time, we may
recall the same visitor's impression of his
character, as it largely bears out that of those
who knew him intimately, though differing
from that often gathered by those who have
judged that because a man could be sharp on
occasion he was a veritable porcupine.
" He was as open, cordial and unaffected as if it
was an old friend he was receiving, and not a person
428 DOUGLAS JERROLD
comparatively unknown to him. He moved, talked,
laughed in the most perfect spontaneity of freedom.
There was not a particle of ' snob ' in him ; not a
breath of the bel air qui s'apprend si vite, and of
which some of his contemporaries — and even those
who have distinguished themselves the most by
felicitous persiflage of said bel air — are yet signal
examples. No; Douglas Jerrold was no 'snob';
he was a child of nature, as free, and frank, and
unconstrained, and so as graceful as a child. He did
not seem, as some do, to mutter ' gentleman ' to
himself, and stiffen himself up into the due attitude
and aspect. He seemed never to think of being a
gentleman, never to try to be a gentleman, and yet —
though it cannot be said, perhaps, that he had all
that delicacy of feeling that results only from that
quality of respect for others and respect for one's -
self which only the true gentleman possesses in
sweet equilibrium within him — he can be very
warrantably named, gentleman. It is to be considered,
also, that these two species of respect thus in calm
neutrality of union, but with graceful oscillation now
to this side and now to that, hardly finds a favourable
bed in the breast of a literary man ; for a literary
man generally feels himself all too specially an ego,
a particular and peculiar ' I,' and dreams ever of his
own proper mission, to the disparagement frequently
of that of all others.
" But be this as it may, there was not a pin's point
of affectation in Douglas Jerrold : he was natural,
simple, open as a boy. He chatted away, on the
occasion I speak of, in the liveliest manner, gaily,
frankly, unconstrainedly, and made no secret either
of his thoughts and opinions, or of his predilections
and antipathies. And I must not forget to add — ^for
I have heard of accusations against him in this
DOUGLAS JERROLD 429
respect — that the first time I called, he wrote out,
quite unasked, and even as he chatted, a cheque,
as compensation for two or three articles I had sent
him. He gave me, also, a copy of Clovernook, showing
me, with some pride, a translation of it in German,
and expressing the decided opinion that it was his
best work.
" During both visits, passages in his own history
were as freely communicated as descriptions, anec-
dotes, and personal traits of his contemporaries.
We talked of Carlyle : he could not say he liked his
style, but honoured him, for he was a man thoroughly
in earnest, and had at heart every word he wrote.
Did Carlyle come out among them ? Yes : he was not
quite an anchorite. He had met him at Bulwer's.
They had talked of Tawell (the murderer of the day).
He (Jerrold) had said something about the absurdity
of capital punishments. Carlyle had burst out :
' The wretch ! (Tawell) I would have had him
trampled to pieces under foot and buried on the
spot ! ' ' But I (Jerrold) said, " Cui bono — cui
bono .? " ' This little anecdote made quite an im-
pression on me. As Jerrold related it, his eye seemed
to see again the whole scene; his features assumed
the look they must have worn, and his voice the tone
it must have possessed on the occasion; and he
seemed again to be holding his breath, as if again
taken suddenly by surprise. To me, too, the whole
scene flashed up vividly : the vehement Carlyle, all
in fuliginous flame, and the deprecating ' Cui bono ? '
of the astounded, not then vehement Jerrold; the
stronger, broader conflagration appalling the weaker
and narrower."
That is, unfortunately, the only note of a
meeting between Jerrold and Carlyle, though
430 DOUGLAS JERROLD
both were at Charles Dickens's reading of the
Chimes at Forster's rooms, and at the dinner
which celebrated the commencement of the
publication of David Copperfield.
In May, the dainty little volume of Chronicles
of Clovernook was published, including five
essays that had also appeared in the Illumin-
ated Magazine, and a pleasant note from the
Hon. Mrs. Norton acknowledged a copy of the
book sent to her :
" Chesterfield Street,
" May 20, 1846.
" Dear Mr. Jerrold, — I ought, before now, to
have thanked you for the Chronicles of Clovernook :
a spot invented by the power who tormented Tantalus:
and to which, I regret to think, there is no signpost
to show the way. I am very much obliged to you
for thinking of sending it to me, tho' I hope I
should have had the good taste at all events to have
read it.
" Do you not mean to have a Punch-&o!x;Z at the
Duke of Buckingham's conduct in the matter of his
daughter's marriage ? The daughter is six-and-
twenty; the man she has chosen, a gentleman in
every sense of the word, of an old family and rich ;
no possible objection but that he has no title. The
couple go to be married, and the Duke pulls his
daughter away by main force from the vestry; the
clergyman, who ought to have married them, so
overcome by the Ducal arrival, that he will not
perform the service at all : by which means other
couples, who are totally disconnected with Dukes,
are disappointed of their rightful union.
" I liked very much (nevertheless) the article on
DOUGLAS JERROLD 481
Clerical Snobs : which reminded me of Charles
Lamb's Essays of Elia.
" Believe me, dear Mr. Jerrold,
" Yours truly,
" Caroline Norton,"
It is probable that the fact that Jerrold was
preparing to launch a fresh newspaper got
about, for some one who had heard of it
thought that it would mean his severing his
connection with Punch, and hastened into
print with the suggestion. Thus it came about
that Douglas Jerrold felt called upon to address
the following " meek remonstrance " to the
editor of the Liverpool Journal in the matter
of his London correspondent :
" Mr. Editor, — Some falsehoods may be made as
like to truths as toadstools are like to mushrooms.
And folks who really believe they have an excellent
eye to choose the healthful from the poisonous
fungus have, nevertheless, gathered and cooked the
sham mushroom — and all with the best intentions
— to the passing inconvenience of the partakers
thereof.
" Your London correspondent, Mr. Editor, has
placed me in a like dilemma. He has — I am sure
unwittingly — in his basket of metropolitan gathering,
sent you certain toadstools with his mushrooms.
Here is one ; a very large toadstool indeed —
" ' Douglas Jerrold is off Punch ! '
" Now, Mr. Editor, I can contradict this on, I
believe, the very best authority — my own. And
inasmuch as the erroneous statement has been very
generally copied throughout the provincial papers,
432 DOUGLAS JERROLD
I herewith — though solely in compliance with the
wishes of others — formally and triply deny it.
" Douglas Jerrold is not off Punch.
" Has not been off Punch.
" And will not be off Punch.
" In truth whereof, I subscribe myself, Mr. Editor,
" Your obedient, humble Servant,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The " wishes of others " were probably
those of the proprietors of Punch, who would
naturally feel that their property might suffer
if it were believed that the pen which had
given them the wide popularity of Mrs. Caudle
were no longer at their service. As a matter
of fact, when the production of the monthly
magazine was added to that of his weekly
newspaper, Douglas Jerrold' s regular contribu-
tions to Punch did not fall off in any way;
indeed, before the close of the year he had
contributed one short serial, The Life and
Adventures of Miss Robinson Crusoe ^ and
commenced another, The English in Little.
When the project of a weekly newspaper
began to take shape the idea was that it should
be started in the autumn or at the end of the
year, but circumstances seem to have com-
bined to make it advisable to begin at once.
We gather this from references such as that
in the following letter to Sabilla Novello,
sister of that " tuneful daughter of a tuneful
sire," Clara Novello, and of Mary Cowden
Clarke.
^ Reprinted in Douglas Jerrold and " Punch" 1910.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 433
" Putney Common,
" June 18 [1846].
" My dear Miss Novello, — I ought ere this to
have thanked you for the prospectus. I shall
certainly avail myself of its proff erred advantages,
and, on the close of the vacation, send my girl.
" I presume, ere that time, you will have returned
to the purer shades of Bayswater from all the pleasant
iniquities of Paris. I am unexpectedly deprived of
every chance of leaving home, at least for some time,
if at all this season, by a literary projection that I
thought would have been deferred until late in the
autumn ; otherwise, how willingly would I black
the seams and elbows of my coat with ink, and elevat-
ing my quill into a cure-dent, hie me to the ' Trois-
Freres ! ' But this must not be for God knows when
— or the Devil (my devil mind) better. I am indeed
' nailed to the dead wood ' as Lamb says ; or rather,
in this glorious weather, I feel as somehow a butterfly
or, since I am getting fat, a June fly, impaled on
iron pin, or pen, must feel fixed to one place, with
every virtuous wish to go anywhere and everywhere,
with anybody and almost everybody. I am not an
independent spinster, but — ' I won't weep.' Not
one unmanly tear shall stain this sheet.
" With desperate calmness I subscribe myself,
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
What the school prospectus sent may have
been I cannot say. Possibly there was an
idea of sending " my girl " — that is to say,
the younger one, Mary Ann (Polly) — ^to a school
in Paris.
Exactly a month after that letter was
written to Miss Novello the literary project
VOL. II. F
434 DOUGLAS JERROLD
took actual shape, for it was on July 18, 1846,
that the first copy of Douglas Jerrold's Weekly
Newspaper was published. It was a well-
planned journal of twenty-four pages^ — six
months later enlarged to thirty-two, " the
utmost limit allowed by the Stamp Law " — of
the size of the Saturday Review or Spectator
of to-day. At the moment at which it was
started, Peel and the Conservatives had just
resigned office and had been succeeded by
Lord John Russell and the Whigs, the other
" of the two parties, created and especially
sent upon the earth, to rule its fairest corner,
merry England." Douglas Jerrold was pre-
pared to welcome the Whigs in so far as they
were prepared to fulfil their promises. He was
a Radical, and looked with some doubt on the
policies of both the great parties. The initial
passage of his opening article might have been
written at any moment during the past half-
century, when use-and-wont have been threat-
ened by anything in the shape of reform :
" Our journal has at least this good fortune ; it is
born in a season of gladness. It comes before the
country at a time of holiday and hope : for present
victory gives to us the assurance of future good.
That giant iniquity, the Corn Laws, numbered with
the wickednesses of the past, the heart of England
beats with a new health. All men must feel their
natures elevated by the conviction that from the
present time we start, as a nation, on a new career of
glory ; the glory of teaching all the world a universal,
humanizing truth : a better, brighter, more enduring
DOUGLAS JERROLD 435
glory this than glories won by iron arguments from
Woolwich Arsenal. It is from this time our blessed
privilege to instruct the nations ; to make them
unlearn the dull and pompous gibberish that has
hitherto been the tongue of commercial wisdom —
and teach them to speak the simple words of common-
sense. Happily, some have already set themselves
to the new alphabet. And the lesson will go round;
and the world be the wiser, the happier for the teach-
ing, even though Lord Stanley and party predict
the doom of England, and, in deepest anguish for
the ruin of their national mother, passionately pick
a Greenwich dinner. Beautiful, by the way, is the
blending of the patriot w4th the stoic ! Whenever
England is destroyed — and considering how often
this calamity has occurred, the British Lion ought
certainly to give place to the British Cat — her political
Jeremiahs neither rend their Saxony nor sprinkle
ashes on their bursting heads ; but straightway ship
their woes, and steam to a tavern. ' England,
beloved England ' — cries our modern patriot — ' is
wiped from the world ! Waiter — some burgundy ! ' "
While welcoming the Whigs, for their pro-
mises, Jerrold hinted that it would need
some insistence to see those promises fulfilled
— he had some very strong doubts as to the
innate zeal of either of the ruling parties :
" We have, it seems, begun at the wrong end. We
have punished the man, when we should have taught
the child. We have built prisons where we should
have founded seminaries. We have placed our
hopfes of social security upon the hangman, when we
should have sought the schoolmaster."
436 DOUGLAS JERROLD
The paper, which combined with a succinct
summary of the week's news, both parUa-
mentary and general, outspoken comments on
men and affairs, as well as series of articles
of interest to serious-minded readers, " caught
on," as the modern phrase runs, in most
promising fashion. That it was indeed suc-
cessful from the first is gathered from the
editor-proprietor's letters. Indeed, six months
later he announced the increase in the size
of the journal thus :
" The Editor and Proprietor having, in his deter-
minate appeal to those desirous of progressive move-
ments, been responded to in a manner far beyond
his most sanguine expectations, has determined to
testify his sense of such support by adding gratui-
tously, one-third to his paper."
In the very first number of Douglas Jerrold's
Weekly Newspajjer appeared an article putting
forth a project which had occurred to Jerrold
during his visit to Manchester — followed for
several weeks by others from the pen of
Angus B. Reach, developing the idea — on the
desirability of a central club and lecture
centre for the clerks and assistants of London,
a " Whittington Club," in which the young
citizens and citizenesses of London could meet
in friendly fashion, could attend lectures, and
have social gatherings which should at once
serve to broaden and deepen their lives. The
way in which the scheme was taken up and
took practical shape will be seen later.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 437
Among the people whom Jerrold enlisted
as helpers on the paper were Frederick Guest
Tomlins, who appears to have acted as sub-
editor; Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, author
of The Purgatory of Suicides, who was sent off
as commissioner to describe " The Condition
of the People of England " ; James Hutchison
Stirling, Angus Bethune Reach, and Eliza
Meteyard, who is perhaps best remembered
to-day as the biographer of the Wedgewoods.
Miss Meteyard — for whom her editor found the
pleasant pseudonym of " Silverpen " — wrote
articles on the subject of social reforms, while
week by week a writer whose nom de guerre
was " Church Mouse," wrote a long series of
" Church and State Letters" — which were begun
in broad dialect, but after a time lapsed into
ordinary language. These series gave an air
of stodginess to the paper, but the leading
articles — there were five or six a week — were
pithy and witty and couched in no uncertain
language of Radicalism, while in the third
number Douglas Jerrold added to the other
serial work that he was doing — *S'^. Giles and
St. James in his magazine, and Miss Robinson
Crusoe in Punch — a weekly comment on things
of the moment under the title of The Barber^s
Chair ^ cast in that dialogue form in which his
pen seems to have run most readily. The
paper, added to the magazine and Punch
work, must have kept him most rigorously at
the desk, and we get a hint of its being
^ The Barber's Chair and the Hedgehog Letters, 1874.
438 DOUGLAS JERROLD
too much in the following note to Henry
Chorley :
" August 8 [lS'i6].
" My dear Chorley, — ' I begin to be aweary '
of pen and ink — I've had within this month so much
of it. Let this be my bad excuse for delay of answer.
To business.
" We propose to give to the end of present opera
season £2 per week for the musical matters. Then
comes the recess — then comes with it your absence
and with it a dearth of musical news. On your
return, we may be able to make another arrangement,
either weekly or by the article, for contributions not
musical : for, I fear that the mass of our readers is
too utiUtarian to care much for music or theatres ;
at least so several letters somewhat curtly say.
" The Bentinck matter will, I fear, be too stale —
and has been touched upon. I have not the August
No. of magazine at hand, or would cheque you :
this, however, in a day or two. I calculate upon the
continuation, in spirit I mean, of Belgravia.
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
On the same day on which he wrote thus
to Chorley, Jerrold had also to acknowledge
a pleasant gift received from Charles and Mary
Cowden Clarke, friends who always cherished
for him a warm affection. The gift took the
form of busts of Shakespeare and Milton,
with the brackets for supporting them made
after a design by Michael Angelo :
" Putney,
" August 8 [1846].
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — I know not how best
to thank you for the surprise you and Clarke put
DOUGLAS JERROLD 439
upon me this morning. These casts, while demanding
reverence for what they represent and typify, will
always associate with the feeling that of sincerest
regard and friendship for the donors. These things
will be very precious to me, and, I hope, for many a
long winter's night awaken frequent recollections of
the thoughtful kindness that has made them my
household gods. I well remembered the brackets,
but had forgotten the master. But this is the grati-
tude of the world.
" I hope that my girl will be able to be got ready
for this quarter; but in a matter that involves the
making, trimming and fitting of gowns or frocks, it
is not for one of my benighted sex to offer a decided
opinion. I can only timidly venture to believe that
the young lady's trunk will be ready in a few days.
" Pandora's box was only a box of woman's clothes
— ^with a Sunday gown at the bottom.
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The recent establishment of the newspaper
meant much added hard work to the Editor,
and he was taking a keen interest in the found-
ing of a club for the young men and women
of London, which some months later was to
come into being. He had delegated the routine
work to Angus B. Reach, who dealt with the
subject week by week in the journal, but
the scheme must have meant claims upon
the time of the projector. The work on the
paper, judging by the early success of the
venture, bid fair to be well repaid. Thackeray,
desirous of providing for the future of his
daughters, was to turn to lecturing that he
might make such a sum as he hoped; his
440 DOUGLAS JERROLD
older friend and Punch confrere, sought a
similar end by other means, which for a time
bid fair to prosper, but which in the sequel
left the venturer sadly hampered instead of
helped towards the end he had in view.
In August or early September Jerrold
snatched a short holiday, made necessary by
overwork, and visited the Channel Islands,
confident that his paper was on the way to
being well established. In September he wrote
as follows to Benjamin Webster — for whom he
was evidently under promise to write a further
play:
" West Lodge, Putney Common,
" September 23 [1846].
" My dear Webster, — Your first letter came when
I was ill, from home. And from day to day I have
been about to call upon you in answer to it and the
second. When I returned to town, too, I learned
from Lemon that you had left for Bath. And this
week I have been so nailed to the desk that I could
not follow up my intentions of dropping in at the
Adelphi.
" I have been (to my annoyance) much delayed in
the comedy. First the Daily News — which my ac-
quaintanceship with the proprietor was the sole
inducement for me to join — and next my own paper ;
which it was not my intention to start before Xmas
(long after completion of play) — but I was pre-
cipitated into the venture (a most prosperous one
as it has turned out) by circumstances that menaced
me with anticipation from another quarter. I know
these are scarcely valid excuses for the delay of the
piece- -but they are some extenuation.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 441
" I have much of the comedy done — but frag-
mentary. But — to take the longest day — I fear it
will be (\Ndth my magazine story to close in the next
two numbers — about six weeks or a couple of months
ere the Catspaw will be fit for the stage. I am very
sorry for this delay — but I have been a little com-
forted by an assurance made to me by, as I believed,
credible parties that you have by you three or four
new plays, and that therefore it would not be of so
great importance whether mine came first or second.
However, I will lose no hour from the work, but
complete it as speedily, and I trust as effectively, as
lays in the power of
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Whether the Catspaw was " fit for the stage "
within a couple of months may be doubted,
as more than a couple of years were to pass
before it actually made its appearance.
A few days after sending off that letter
Jerrold received an offer from William Tait
of Edinburgh, of TaWs Edinburgh Magazine —
presumably with a view to its incorporation
with his own Shilling Magazine, but the offer
does not appear to have been considered a
promising speculation. Said Tait :
" The price I ask for the copyright and whole
stock on hand is one thousand pounds. Looking to
the circulation, advertisements and reputation of
the magazine, I think the bargain would be a good
one to you — ^that is, were you to conduct the magazine
with the spirit you have shown, and adhere to the
old plan.
442 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" I can promise you the aid of Mrs. Johnstone, the
largest and best contributor of the reviews for which
TaiVs Magazine is famed ; and I could otherwise
aid you. Mrs. Johnstone's terms are £10 105. per
sheet for reviews and £14 per sheet for tales — retain-
ing the copyright of the latter. You will see the
necessity for secrecy and dispatch. You have here
the iirst offer. If you decline I mean to offer to others
privately instead of advertising."
Jerrold does not seem to have thought the
bargain worth while, and, indeed, he had quite
enough on his hands at the time without taking
over an old venture that he might make it
anew. In fact, the work entailed by running
his newspaper and magazine in addition to his
constant work for Punch and the writing
which he was himself doing for the three
periodicals were already proving overmuch.
During the summer of 1846 had come a fresh
invitation from Charles Dickens, who was
starting on a long working holiday in Switzer-
land. Before setting out he acknowledged a
presentation copy of the Chronicles of Clover-
nook.
" Well, a thousand thanks for the Hermit. He took
my fancy mightily when I first saw him in The
Illuminated ; and I have stowed him away in the
left-hand breast-pocket of my travelling-coat, that
we may hold pleasant converse together on the
Rhine. You see what confidence I have in him. . . .
I wish you would seriously consider the expediency
and feasibility of coming to Lausanne in the summer
or early autumn . I must be at work myself during a
DOUGLAS JERROLD 443
certain part of every day almost, and you could do
twice as much there as here. It is a wonderful place
to see ; and what sort of welcome you would find I will
say nothing about, for I have vanity enough to believe
that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at
home in my household as in any man's."
From Lausanne Dickens wrote again :
"... We are established here in a perfect doll's -
house, which could be put bodily into the hall of
our Italian palazzo. But it is in the most lovely and
delicious situation imaginable, and there is a spare
bedroom wherein we could make you as comfortable
as need be. Bowers of roses for cigar-smoking,
arbours for cool punch-drinking, mountains and
Tyrolean countries close at hand, piled-up Alps
before the windows, etc., etc., etc."
The letter remained unanswered during stress
of work, and also during the short holiday
rest which that work rendered necessary, and
the first number of Dombey had made its
appearance, in the beginning of October, when
Jerrold at length replied to Dickens's tempting
proposal :
" {October 1846].
" My dear Dickens, — Let me break this long
silence with heartiest congratulations. Your book
has spoken like a trumpet to the nation, and it is to
me a pleasure to believe that you have faith in the
sincerity of my gladness at your triumph. You have
rallied your old thousands again ; and, what is most
delightful, you have rebuked and for ever ' put
down ' the small things, half knave, half fool, that
444 DOUGLAS JERROLD
love to make the failure they ' feed on.' They are
under your boot — tread 'em to paste.
" And how is it that your cordial letter, inviting
me to your cordial home, has been so long unanswered ?
Partly from hope, partly from something like shame.
Let me write you a brief penitential history. When
you left England I had been stirred to this news-
paper ('tis forwarded to you, and, I hope, arrives).
Nevertheless, the project was scarcely formed, and
I had not the least idea of producing it before October
— perhaps not until Christmas. This would have
allowed me to take my sunny holiday at Lausanne.
Circumstances, however, too numerous for this
handbill, compelled me to precipitate the speculation
or to abandon it. I printed in July, yet still believed
I should be able to trust it to sufficient hands, long
enough to enable me to spend a fortnight with you.
And from week to week I hoped this — with fainter
hopes, but still hojoes. At last I found it impossible,
though compelled, by something very like congestion
of the brain, to abscond for ten days' health and idle-
ness. And I went to Jersey, when, by heavens, my
heart was at Lausanne. But why not then answer
this letter ? The question I put to myself — God
knows how many times — when your missive, every
other day, in my desk, smote my ungrateful hand
like a thistle. And so time went on, and Dombey
comes out, and now, to be sure, I write. Had
Dombey fallen apoplectic from the steam-press of
Messrs. B[radbury] and E[vans], of course your
letter would still have remained unanswered. But,
with all England shouting ' Viva Dickens,' it is a
part of my gallant nature to squeak through my
quill ' brayvo ' too.
" This newspaper, with other allotments, is hard
work; but it is independence. And it was the hope
DOUGLAS JERROLD 445
of it that stirred me to the doing. I have a feeUng of
dread — a something almost insane in its abhorrence
of the condition of the old, worn-out literary man ;
the squeezed orange {lemons in my case, sing some
sweet critics); the spent bullet; the useless lumber
of the world, flung upon literary funds while alive,
with the hat to be sent round for his coffin and his
widow. And therefore I set up this newspaper,
which — I am sure of it — you will be glad to learn, is
a large success. Its first number went off 18,000 :
it is now 9,000 (at the original outlay of about
£1,500), and is within a fraction three -fourths my
own. It was started at the dullest of dull times,
but every week it is steadily advancing. I hope to
make it an engine of some good. And so much for
my apology — which, if you resist, why, I hope
Mrs. Dickens and Miss H[ogarth] (it's so long ago —
is she still Miss ?) will take up and plead for me. . . .
" You have heard, I suppose, that Thackeray is
big with twenty parts, and, unless he is wrong in his
time, expects the first instalment at Christmas.
Punch, I believe, holds its course. . . . Nevertheless,
I do not very cordially agree with its new spirit.
I am convinced that the world will get tired (at least
I hope so) of this eternal guffaw at all things. After
all, life has something serious in it. It cannot all
be a comic history of humanity. Some men would,
I believe, write the Comic Sermon on the Mount.
Think of a Comic History of England ; the drollery
of Alfred ; the fun of Sir Thomas More in the Tower ;
the farce of his daughter begging the dead head,
and clasping it in her coffin on her bosom. Surely
the world will be sick of this blasphemy. . . . When,
moreover, the change comes, unless Punch goes a
little back to his occasional gravities, he'll be sure
to suffer. . . .
446 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" And you are going to Paris ? I'm told Paris
in the spring is very delectable. Not very bad
sometimes at Christmas. Do you know anybody
likely to ask me to take some bouilli there ? In all
seriousness, give my hearty remembrances to your
wife and sister. I hope that health and happiness
are showered on them, on you, and all. And believe
me, my dear Dickens,
" Yours ever truly and sincerely,
" Douglas Jerrold."
This letter is interesting as showing the
feelings which inspired the starting of the
paper, also for its frank expression of dislike
for the mere comic, and as a rare example of
its writer's " letting himself go," as the phrase
runs, in such communications. He was not
a letter writer in the sense of being one who
found enjoyment in letter writing, and rarely
wrote more than the briefest of epistles;
apropos of which may be given the following
from George Hodder's Memorials of My Time,
Hodder quotes as a specimen of the singularly
laconic style of Jerrold's letters :
" Sunday Evening,
" P%itney.
" Dear Hodder, — Will you dine with me on
Xmas Day ?
" Yours truly,
"D.J."
Hodder's words have prepared the reader to
believe that it was to be an example of the
letter writer's wit, but it is difficult to refrain
from thinking that the specimen of " singularly
DOUGLAS JERROLD 447
laconic style " was cited to show the company
in which he, Hodder, had dined on some un-
certain Christmas.
Towards the end of October — as he explained
in a letter to Macready — Dickens left Lausanne
and lodged for a week in Geneva, hoping by
so doing that he had run away from a bad
headache, and it was from Geneva that he
answered Jerrold's letter— far more promptly
than Jerrold had answered his :
" [Qeneva,
" October 1846].
" My dear Jerrold, — This day week I finished
my little Christmas book (writing towards the close
the exact words of a passage in your affectionate
letter, received this morning ; to wit, ' After all,
life has something serious in it '), and ran over here
for a week's rest. I cannot tell you how much true
gratification I have had in your most hearty letter.
F[orsterl told me that the same spirit breathed
through a notice of Dombey in your paper; and I
have been saying since to K. and G.^ that there is no
such good way of testing the worth of a Hterary
friendship as by comparing its influence on one's
mind with any that Hterary animosity can produce.
Mr. W. will throw me into a violent fit of anger for
the moment, it is true; but his acts and deeds pass
into the death of all bad things next day, and rot
out of my memory; whereas a generous sympathy,
like yours, is ever present to me, ever fresh and new
to me — always stimulating, cheerful and delightful.
The pain of unjust mahce is lost in an hour. The
pleasure of a generous friendship is the steadiest
^ His wife and sister.
448 DOUGLAS JERROLD
joy in the world. What a glorious and comfortable
thing that is to think of.
" No, I don't get the paper regularly. To the best
of my recollections I have not had more than three
numbers — certainly not more than four. But I
knew how busy you must be, and had no expectation
of hearing from you until I wrote from Paris (as
I intended doing), and implored you to come and
make merry with us there. I am truly pleased to
receive your good account of that enterprise. I feel
all you say upon the subject of the literary man in
his old age, and know the incalculable benefit of
such a resource. . . . Anent the Comic {History^ and
similar comicalities I feel exactly as you do. Their
effect upon me is very disagreeable. Such joking
is like the sorrow of an undertaker's mute, reversed,
and is applied to serious things, with the like pro-
priety and force. . . .
" Paris is good both in the spring and in the winter.
So come, first at Christmas, and let us have a few
jolly holidays together at what Mr. Rowland of
Hatton Garden calls ' that festive season of the year,'
when the hair is peculiarly liable to come out of curl
unless, etc. I hope to reach there, bag and baggage,
by the twentieth of next month. As soon as I am
lodged I will write to you. Do arrange to run over
at Christmas -time, and let us be as English and as
merry as we can. It's nothing of a journey, and you
shall write ' o' mornings,' as they say in modern
Elizabethan, as much as you like. . . .
" The newspapers seem to know as much about
Switzerland as about the Esquimaux country. I
should like to show you the people as they are here,
or in the Canton de Vaud — their wonderful education,
splendid schools, comfortable homes, great intelli-
gence, and noble independence of character. It is
DOUGLAS JERROLD 449
the fashion among the English to decry them because
they are not servile. I can only say that, if the
first quarter of a century of the best general education
would ever rear such a peasantry in Devonshire as
exists about here, or about Lausanne ('bating their
disposition towards drunkenness), it would do what
I can hardly hope in my most sanguine moods we
may effect in four times that period. The revolution
here just now (which has my cordial sympathy) was
conducted with the most gallant, true and Christian
spirit — the conquering party moderate in the first
transports of triumph, and forgiving. I swear to
you that some of the appeals to the citizens of both
parties, posted by the new government (the people's)
on the walls, and sticking there now, almost drew
the tears into my eyes as I read them ; they are so
truly generous, and so exalted in their tone — so far
above the miserable strife of politics, and so devoted
to the general happiness and welfare. . . .
" I have had great success again in magnetism.
E[lliotson], who has been with us for a week or so,
holds my magnetic powers in great veneration, and
I really think they are, by some conjunction of chances,
strong. Let them, or something else, hold you to me
by the heart. Ever, my dear Jerrold,
" Affectionately your friend,
" C. D."
At this time was published the veteran
Leigh Hunt's Wit and Humour, and in Jerrold's
newspaper the work was accorded a notice of
nearly four columns — a notice which if not
written by the editor was certainly marked
by his revision. A cordial tribute was paid
to Hunt :
VOL. II. G
450 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" He is truly a man, neither angelic nor satanic.
It is the fleshly human being he vindicates, and would
illustrate. In this particular he resembles Fielding;
and it is a proof of the originality of his genius that
in a romantic, metaphysical, demoniac and trans-
cendental age, through which he has lived, he should
have so thoroughly retained the simplicity of human
nature. He, the associate of Shelley, Keats and
Byron, the contemporary of Scott, Coleridge and
Wordsworth, still does not seek to soar to heaven
nor dive to hell with any of them. He is of the earth,
manly, and this manliness, we take it, is that which
makes him so eminently critical. As a perfectly
endowed man he sympathizes with every mood,
expands to the noblest sentiments, searches with
a keen glance into the operations of the intellect,
and ' his blood and spirits are so well commingled '
that every phase of thought, feeling and sensation
is familiar to him; to this has been added a happy
power of expression and a kind nature. Thus his
book on Wit and Humour might be taken for the
joyous dissertation of a youth just awakened to all
the highest pleasures of reflective existence, did not
experience tell us that the vein of wisdom that runs
through it nothing but a varied experience could
give ; and did we not also know that polish of style
and expression is the last grace acquired."
Towards the close of the review regret was
expressed that the author had not drawn upon
the wit of Thomas Hood, or the humour of
Gilbert a Beckett. Leigh Hunt promptly
wrote to Douglas Jerrold, sending a letter to
him as editor which duly appeared in the follow-
ing issue of the paper :
DOUGLAS JERROLD 451
" Dear Sir, — Permit me to say publicly, in
observation upon one of the many kind and valued
remarks made on Wit and Humour, in a journal so
full of both — fii'st, that I had written a distinct notice
of Hood and his genius, which with many other
notices was unable to be comprised within a single
volume ; secondly, that those notices will be very
much at the service of the public in a second volume
on the same topics, if they choose to have it (as,
indeed, I have stated in the Preface); thirdly, that
reasons of delicacy, particularly the fear of being
thought unjust or invidious towards authors omitted,
precluded the extension of the plan to such as are
living (which was stated in the Introduction to
Imagination and Fancy); and, lastly, that no man
admires living genius of all kinds more than I do, or
(allow me to add) has been more accustomed to hail
it. I am known to agree warmly with the praises
bestowed on the gentleman you allude to, Mr. A
Beckett, though I am better acquainted with his
anonymous than his avowed productions ; and few
things would have pleased me more than being able
to make a selection from the writings of all our A
Becketts, Jerrolds, Fonblanques, Thackerays, Taylors,
etc., and offer it as a new quintessence to the world. I
differ occasionally as to objects of attack ; but nobody
feels more astonishment and respect for that combina-
tion of incessant wit and philanthropic zeal which
distinguishes our daily and weekly literature. Never,
indeed, even in this witty and humorous country, have
so much wit and humour been poured forth to us as at
this moment ; and the charm is completed by the fact
that the laughter is not that of despair, but of hope.
I have the honour to be, dear Sir,
" Your obliged and faithful servant,
" Leigh Hunt."
452 DOUGLAS JERROLD
The manuscript of that letter recently adver-
tised for sale as " evidently complete without
the signature," was presumably Leigh Hunt's
draft of it, for there are important differences
between it and the letter as it appeared in
Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper.
It may be said here that when Leigh Hunt
was the honoured guest of the Museum Club,
it fell to Douglas Jerrold to propose the toast
of his health, and that he said of the elderly
poet and critic " even in his hottest warfare,
his natural sense of beauty and gentleness was
so great that, like David of old, he armed his
sling with shining pebbles of the brook, and
never pelted even his fiercest enemy with mud."
Hunt, in reply, proved himself a master of the
retort-complimentary, saying that " If his
friend Jerrold had the sting of a bee he had
also its honey." A few years later there was
to be a break in the friendly relations be-
tween the younger writer and the man who
had dared to speak of a Royal Prince as a fat
Adonis of fifty. That, however, need not be
touched upon for the moment.
In November, or at the beginning of
December, Douglas Jerrold had a fresh attack
of his constant enemy rheumatism, and jour-
neyed to Malvern to undergo the "cure," an
experience which apparently proved beneficial,
though not altogether cheerful. Some time
afterwards Richard James Lane sent him a little
book on Life at a Water Cure ; or, A Month at
Malvern^ and Jerrold acknowledging it said ;
DOUGLAS JERROLD 453
" Its frontispiece — suddenly opened — made me
livid with recollections of Malvern ; for I was there
in savage December and January — and did not have
those celestial visitings from the nymph recorded
by Sir E. B. Lytton. I have even said of the Water
Cure that for whatever good it did me (and though
I quitted Malvern wretchedly ill, I believe I was
benefited by the system) — it can only have my grati-
tude, never my love. I assure you that even now
I can contemplate Malvern Hills at 7 a.m. in bleak
December, and one, two, nay even three glasses of
water at the various fountains, without the weakness
of extravagant enthusiasm, but philosophically, and,
I hope, like a man. Human bliss may, for what
I know, haunt the bottom of a sitz-bath ; but it was
never found there by,
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
In the autumn of this year Lord Nugent,
writing to John Forster said, " I shall soon
dun you for the dinner I made you promise
me, and the introduction you promised me to
Mr. Douglas Jerrold." The meeting took place
and led to a pleasant friendship. On Christmas
Day Jerrold wrote :
" Putney,
" December 25, 1846.
" My dear Lord Nugent, — 'Twill give me much
pleasure to be with you on Thursday. If this
Shakespeare Monument grow beyond the prospectus,
it will do so under the care of a few hearty enthusiasts
in the matter. The world at large will, I fear, smell
the project, as he himself says, ' with a dead man's
nose.' The prospectus was, I know, sent to every
454 DOUGLAS JERROLD
newspaper in the kingdom — I have seen it only in
the columns of two.
" I am gratified that you should have anticipated
a peep into Clovernook.
" With compliments to Lady Nugent, believe me,
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold.
" Epigram too late for Punch this week; but time
enough for next."
The humorist must be humorous even though
racked with rheumatism, and though certain
of the work on the magazine and newspaper
could be delegated to lieutenants, Jerrold
continued sending his weekly quota of com-
ments and articles to Punch. In the middle
of December he sent a delightful perversion
of Malvern experiences in an account of
Life at the Brandy and Water Cure, with sly
digs at Lytton, who had written the Confessions
of a Water Patient. " Oh, for Sir Edward's
pen I Oh, for the eagle plume of Bulwer !
For how can my goose-quill express the delights,
the glories of the wet Cold Brandy-and-Water
Sheet."
Towards the close of the year we get indica-
tions of a falling-off in the prosperity of the
magazine when the editor wrote to one of his
regular contributors :
" My dear Chorley, — Herewith is £25. I have
been ill and harassed or should have called on you.
I hope to do so in a day or two. Touching the series,
I fear I have no room for lengthy papers, as another
DOUGLAS JERROLD 455
story will begin (probably) the next number. I have
also an annoying matter to write of — namely, terms.
For some months past, I have been paying out of
my own contributions to keep up the 105. per page :
I am allowed by the proprietors only at a rate of
85. (which I must now fall to) — this, they say, fully
averages the £10 per sheet of Fraser and New Monthly.
At these terms, I v^ill insert as much as possible —
two or three or four papers per month — if brief, that
is from four, six or eight pages each.
" I contemplate making another push with the
paper (which is doing steadily and well) — see ad-
vertisements at the end of the year — and, ere then,
probably you could suggest something. We want
vivacity and sparkle upon the things of the week.
" Yours truly,
" D. Jerrold."
The new story for the magazine was R. H.
Home's The Dreamer and the Worker — not
altogether a happy selection. The price men-
tioned for contributions suggests that writing
for the magazines of the 'forties was not a
very profitable form of authorship ; the " eight
shillings a page " representing in modern writing
parlance but about " sixteen shillings a thou-
sand words " !
If Malvern did not win Jerrold's love it gained
his gratitude, and he was back at Putney and
at work again more or less set up, when he
had to point out one of the thorns in the
editorial cushion — to use Thackeray's illus-
tration— in writing to one of his sisters
(Mrs. Copeland), who had evidently sought
to obtain a good word for a friend's book :
456 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Putney,
" February 13 [1847].
" My dear Betsy, — I wish you had asked me
something that I could have granted. It isn't your
fault that you're a woman, and consequently can
with difficulty be made to understand that a journal,
to be powerful and respected, must have a reputation.
The book of your friend is arrant trash. How, then,
can I praise it ? And if I do, of what value — in the
literary world — is the opinion of the newspaper ?
By the way, it is flourishing; and is already a
property : it will be a very great one. I hope you
are all well. I propose (if I can manage it) to go to
Chester at the races, and thence, for a few days into
Wales. In which case I shall see you. Mary (or
rather the two Marys i) will come with me. I hope
you are all well. Hammond tells me that you are
flourishing, which news is most pleasing to your
bad correspondent, but nevertheless affectionate
brother,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Jerrold did not get to Paris and the pleasant
time there with Dickens, to which he had
looked forward as a possible break in the
winter's work. Ill-health sent him to Malvern
instead. Dickens was still in Paris on St.
Valentine's Day, when he wrote thence to
Jerrold — possibly in response to an invitation
to attend the inaugural soiree of the Whitting-
ton Club which was about to take place — and
of which Dickens duly became a Vice-President.
Again, there is but a portion of the letter
available :
^ His wife and daughter.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 457
" I am somehow reminded of a good story I heard
the other night from a man who was a witness of it,
and an actor in it. At a certain German town last
autumn there was a tremendous furore about Jenny
Lind, who, after driving the whole place mad, left
it, on her travels, early one morning. The moment
her carriage was outside the gates a party of rampant
students, who had escorted it, rushed back to the
inn, demanded to be shown her bedroom, swept like
a whirlwind upstairs into the room indicated to
them, tore up the sheets, and wore them in strips as
decorations. An hour or two afterwards a bald old
gentleman of amiable appearance, an Englishman,
who was staying in the hotel, came to breakfast at
the table (Thote, and was observed to be much disturbed
in his mind, and to show great terror whenever a
student came near him. At last he said in a low
voice to some people who were near him at the table,
' You are English gentlemen, I observe. Most
extraordinary people these Germans ! Students, as
a body, raving mad, gentlemen ! ' ' Oh, no,' said
somebody else, ' excitable, but very good fellows,
and very sensible.' ' By God, sir ! ' returned the
old gentleman, ' then there's something political in
it, and I am a marked man. I went out for a little
walk this morning after shaving, and while I was
gone ' — he fell into a terrible perspiration as he told
it — ' they burst into my bedroom, tore up my sheets,
and are now patrolling the town in all directions with
bits of 'em in their buttonholes ! ' I needn't wind up
by adding that they had gone to the wrong chamber ! "
Early in 1847 Douglas Jerrold was associated
with a scheme to provide London with a new
cattle market, that should do away with the
horrors of Smithfield, which had for years
458 DOUGLAS JERROLD
been something of a scandal. In the early
'thirties one man had sought to improve
matters by setting up a new market at Islington,
but his costly scheme had proved a failure.
In the beginning of 1847 " The Great Metro-
politan Cattle Market and Abattoir Company "
was announced as being formed with a capital
of £400,000, and one of the four auditors was
Douglas Jerrold ! The scheme does not appear
to have come to anything, though the insist-
ence of the projectors upon the necessity for
reform may have had something to do with
the legislation of the following year concerning
slaughter-house abuses, and with the establish-
ment a few years later of the Corporation
Cattle Market in the Caledonian Road. I
have not been able to trace the existence of
the company beyond its advertised prospectus.
Douglas Jerrold would have been enlisted as
an earnest supporter of any reform of real
social value, but there is something of the
comic in his filling the position of auditor.
Another public matter which he had more
closely at heart was the establishment of the
Whittington Club. During the first six or
seven months the project had been developed
in his newspaper and a considerable number
of people had come forward to testify to the
usefulness of such an institution and to proffer
help in forming it. The papers which an-
nounced the formation of the Cattle Market
Company announced also the first soiree of
the members (and their friends) of the Whit-
DOUGLAS JERROLD 459
tington Club and Metropolitan Athenaeum as
about to be held at the London Tavern, with
Douglas Jerrold, " President and Founder," in
the chair. It was duly announced at about
the same time that premises had been taken
for the club at 7, Gresham Street, City, " being
a part of the ancient Whittington Estate,"
and were being adapted for their new purposes
with the utmost rapidity, and that the sub-
scription was to be one guinea a year for town
and half a guinea for country members.
The soiree duly took place on February 17,
with Douglas Jerrold presiding, and among
those supporting him who had warmly taken
up the project were William and Mary Howitt,
Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke, R. H. Home,
Charles Knight, George Dawson, the popular
lecturer. Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Bowring,
Dr. Elliotson, Professor (afterwards Sir Richard)
Owen, and many other people of note in their
day whose names are now less familiar.
Altogether between fourteen and fifteen
hundred members and friends were present,
and over five hundred had had to be refused
tickets. An important feature of the Club
was that women and men were to be admitted
on an equal footing — one of the many instances
in which the projector was, as the saying is,
before his time, though it may be said that
this novel feature of the Whittington Club was
one that was widely welcomed. It was touched
upon in the song especially written for, rather
than inspired by, the occasion by W. H.
460 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Prideaux, and composed as a quintet by
George J. O. Allman :
Here we meet, a happy band,
Heart with heart, and hand in hand
Children of our Father-land.
Loving all humanity.
From Whittington, of humble fame
We borrow our time-honoured name,
And seek to win, with truthful aim,
As fine an immortality.
Bright day has daAvned, and darkness feels
The blinding crush of reason's wheels
And faith with perfect voice appeals
To mind in her ascendancy !
Dear woman, in all hearts enshrined,
The fostering mother of mankind
Here blends her sympathies refined,
And crowns our glad community !
A number of drawings, busts and prints —
including a painting by Newenham of Whitting-
ton listening to Bow Bells, presented by the
President — that had been given to the Club
were on view, and a varied musical programme
was punctuated with speeches on the Club
and its work, by Charles Knight, George Daw-
son, William Howitt and others. Here it is
the Chairman's speech that concerns us, and
as an expression of the social faith that was
in him, of his ideals and hopes, it may perhaps
be permitted to give his address in full :
" Ladies and Gentlemen, — The post of danger,
it has been said, is the post of honour. I was never
more alive to the truth of the saying than at the
present moment. For whilst, from a consciousness
DOUGLAS JERROLD 461
of inability duly to perform the duty to which you
have called me, I feel my danger — I must, neverthe-
less, acknowledge the honour even of the post itself.
But it is the spirit of hope that has called us together
on the present most interesting occasion ; and in
that spirit I will endeavour to perform a task not
rendered particularly facile to me by frequent prac-
tice. It is my duty, then, as briefly as I may, to
dwell upon the purpose that brings us together this
evening ; and, as simply as lies within my power, to
explain the various objects of our young institution —
the infant Whittington. And even now it must be
considered a most promising child ; a child that has
already got upon its feet ; and though not yet eight
months old — not eight months, ladies — is even now
insisting upon running alone. But, gentlemen, while
you rejoice at the energy of this very forward child,
I beseech you to have a proper humility — as becomes
our sex in all such cases — and take none of the credit
to yourselves. Indeed, no man can have the face
to do so, looking at the fair faces before him ; for
therein he cannot but acknowledge the countenance
that has made the institution what it really is. The
growing spirit of our day is the associative spirit.
Men have gradually recognized the great social truth,
vital in the old fable of the bundle of sticks — and
have begun to make out of what would otherwise be
individual weakness combined strength. And so
small sticks binding themselves together obtain at
once the strength of clubs. Now, we propose, nay,
we have carried out, such a combination ; with this
happy difference ; that whereas such clubs have
hitherto been composed of sticks of husbands and
single sticks alone — we for the first time intend to
grace them with those human flowers that give to
human life its best worth and sweetness. I think
462 DOUGLAS JERROLD
I recollect an old copy-book text that says : ' Imitate
your betters.' Now, I have a dark suspicion that
though the word was in that text of early morality,
or copy-book text — ^the word ' betters ' nevertheless
signified richer. Well, in this by no means obsolete
sense we have by the formation of the Whittington
Club only imitated our betters. We have paid them
the respectful homage of following their example.
The gold sticks and silver sticks, and chamberlain's
rods, and black rods of high society have bound
themselves together for mutual advantage and mutual
enjoyment ; and why not the humble wands of
life ? If we have clubs composed, I may say, of
canes with gold heads — or, if not always with gold
heads, at least with plenty of gold about them — if
we have clubs of nobles, wherefore not clubs of clerks ?
For my own part there are lions and tigers, even in
highest heraldry, for which I have, certainly, not
more respect than for the cat — the legendary cat —
of Richard Whittington. Nevertheless, the proposed
institution of our club has, in two or three quarters,
been criticized as an impertinence ; as almost a
revolutionary movement, disrespectful to the vested
interests of worshipful society. It has really been
inferred that the social advantages contemplated by
our institution would be vulgarized by being made
cheap. These pensive prophets seem to consider the
refinements of life to be like the diamond — rarity
making their only worth; and with these people
multiply the diamonds ten thousandfold; and for
such reason, with them, they would no longer be
considered fit even for a gentleman. These folks
have only sympathies with the past. They love to
contemplate the world with their heads over their
shoulders, turned as far backward as anatomy will
permit to them that surpassing luxury. Nevertheless,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 463
there is a tenderness at times, in the regret of these
folks, for vested interests — a tenderness that makes
it touching. Tell them, for instance, that this City
of London is about to be veined with the electric
telegraph, that wires, vibrating with the pulse of
human thought, are about to be made messengers
'twixt man and man — and these people, ' beating
their pensive bosoms,' will say, ' Yes, it's all very
well — ^with these whispering wires — ^this electric tele-
graph— but if wires are to run upon messages, what,
what's to become of the vested interests of the ticket
porters ? ' Why, with these people the rising sun
itself should be to them no other than a young, fiery
revolutionist — for he comes upon the world, trampling
over the vested interests — that is, the darkness — of
the last night. However, briefly to scan the various
purposes of our institution. We intend to establish
two Club houses — two to begin with — whose members
may obtain meals and refreshments at the lowest
remunerating prices. Well, surely men threaten no
danger to the state by dining. On the contrary, the
greater danger sometimes is, when men can get no
dinner. In the most troublous times, knives are
never to be made so harmless as when coupled with
forks. Hence, I do not see why the mutton-chop of
a duke at the Western Athenaeum might not be
imagined to hold a very affable colloquy with the
chop of a clerk, cooked at the Whittington. We
next propose to have a Library and Reading Room.
We intend to place the spirits of the wise upon our
shelves ; and when did evil ever come of wisdom ?
It is true our books may not be as richly burnished
as the books of western clubs — our library may not
have the same delicious odour of Russia leather — in
a word, our books may not have as good coats to
their backs — but it will be our own faults if they have
464 DOUGLAS JERROLD
not the same ennobling spirit in their utterance.
It is also proposed to give Lectures in the various
branches of Literature, Science and Art. Well, I
believe I am not called upon to say anything in
defence of this intention. There was a time, indeed,
when lectures addressed to the popular mind were
condemned as only ministering to popular dissatis-
faction. The lecturer was looked upon as a meek
Guy Fawkes dressed for an evening party — and his
lectures, like Acre's letter, were pronounced ' to
smell woundily of gunpowder.' This is past, Litera-
ture, Science and Art are now open sources : the
padlocks are taken from the wells — come and drink.
" Languages, mathematics, music, painting will
be taught in classes — in classes that I hope will, like
the gourd, come up in their fulness in a night. Occa-
sional entertainments combining the attractions of
music and conversation will be given. Such attrac-
tions being enhanced by the presence of ladies. And
here I approach what I consider to be the most
admirable, as it is the most novel, feature of the
institution, the admission of females to all its privi-
leges. I think the Whittington Club will enjoy the
rare distinction of being the only club in London
popular among its fair inhabitants. I know that
this rule — the admission of ladies — has been made the
subject of somewhat melancholy mirth. The female
names already numbered best rebuke the scoffers.
For have we not Mary Howitt — a name musical to
the world's ear — a name fraught with memories of
the gentlest, the tenderest emotions of the human
heart, voiced by the sweetest verse ? Have we not,
too, Mary Cowden Clarke, whose wonderful book,
The Concordance of Shakespeare, is as a votive lamp
lighted at the shrine of the poet — a lamp that will
burn as long as Shakespeare's name is worshipped by
DOUGLAS JERROLD 465
the nations. But I feel it would be more than
discourtesy to such names further to notice the wit
made easy of those who sneer at the principle which
admits ladies as members of the Whittington Club.
' To employees and employed alike ' — says the
Prospectus — ' the Whittington Club appeals with
confidence for support.' Certainly, to employers the
institution offers the exercise of a great social duty —
namely, to assist in a work that shall still tend to
dignify the employed with a sense of self-respect ; at
all times the surest guarantee of honest performance
'twixt man and man. Nevertheless, whilst all such
aid on the part of the richer members of the com-
munity must be cordially acknowledged by the less
rich, the institution must depend for a fiourishing
vitality upon the energy of the employed themselves.
Without that, the institution cannot permanently
succeed; and further, it will not deserve success.
Yes : I am sure you feel this truth : a truth that,
it is manifest, has been widely acknowledged, from
the fact that, at the present moment, the Whittington
Club numbers upwards of a thousand names — and
the list is daily, hourly lengthening. May the spirit
of Whittington await on the good work. Yet, of
Whittington, our patron — as I think we may venture
to call him — how little do we truly know, and yet
how much in that little ! We see him — the child
hero of our infancy — on Highgate stone ; the orphan
buffeted by the cruelty of the world — cruelty that
is ever three parts ignorance — homeless, friendless,
hopeless. He is, then, in his little self, one of the
saddest sights of earth ; an orphan, only looked upon
by misery. And the legend tells us — and I am sure
that there are none of us here who, if we could, would
disbelieve it — the legend tells us, that suddenly Bow
Bells rang out from London — from London, that
VOL. II, H
466 DOUGLAS JERROLD
stony-hearted mistress, that with threats and stripes
had sent the httle wanderer forth. And voices,
floating from the far-off steeple — floating over field
and meadow — sang to the little outcast boy a song
of hope. Childish fancy dreamt the words, but hope
supplied the music. ' Turn again, Whittington, thrice
Lord Mayor of London ! ' And the little hero rose,
and retraced his steps ; with new strength, and hope
mysterious, in his little breast, returned to the city —
drudged and drudged — and we know the golden end.
In due time Bow Bells were truest prophets. Such
is the legend that delights us in childhood. But as
we grow to maturity we see in the story something
more than a pretty tale. Yes : we recognize, in the
career of Richard Whittington that Saxon energy
which has made this City of London what it is ; we
see and feel in that commercial glory that wins the
noblest conquests for the family of man; for the
victories are bloodless. And, therefore, am I truly
glad that our club carries the name, that when the
idea of this institution rose to my mind, rose instantly
with it — the name of Whittington. And I cannot
think it otherwise than a good omen, that one of our
houses already taken — the house in Gresham Street —
is a part of the estate of the little Highgate day-
dreamer. Yes ; we are — so to speak — tenants of
Richard Whittington. And, in conclusion, let us
hope that as, in the oldest time, voices from Bow
steeple called a hopeless wanderer to a long career of
usefulness and fame — so may voices, from this
present meeting, find their way to the hearts of many
thousands of our mercantile and commercial brethren,
crying to them, ' Join us — join us — Whittington.' "
After the successful opening of the Whitting-
ton Club, Mary Cowden Clarke records that
DOUGLAS JERROLD 467
she went to West Lodge to present Douglas
Jerrold with a cushion for his study armchair
— a cushion embroidered with the head of a
cat that might have been Dick Whittington's
own. Mrs. Clarke adds that " Jerrold turned
to his wife, saying, ' My dear, they have brought
me your portrait.' And the smile that met his
showed how well the woman who had been
his partner from youth, comprehended the
delicate force of the ironical jest which he
could afford to address to her."
The Whittington Club started well, and for
a few years enjoyed some prosperity and useful-
ness. It may be regarded as a social develop-
ment of the idea which had inspired George
Birkbeck when he had founded in 1820 that
Mechanics Institute which, as extended and
developed into the Birkbeck College, is ap-
proaching the completion of its century of
activity. Since, in polytechnics and other
institutions a similar idea has been widely and
fruitfully carried out.
CHAPTER XIV
SPLENDID STROLLING — MRS. GAMP — " THAT
DOUGLADGE "—PARIS IN REVOLUTION
1847—1848
The appearance of Douglas Jerrold in the
chair at the Whittington inaugural soiree was
an unusual event. It must have gratified him
to see the institution so well started, but it
was his study that called him, for ill-health
had made breaks in his work; the continuity
of St. Giles and St. James in his magazine had
been broken, though he managed in despite
of illness to get through much of his more or
less topical work, his comments on matters of
the moment either in contributions to Punch
or in that weekly Barber's Chair in his
newspaper, in which Nutts the barber and his
customers were made to say stinging and
pregnant things on social events and cur-
rent politics. During the winter, too, he had
contributed a satiric series of papers to
Punch presenting — as though from General Tom
Thumb, the freak sensation of the hour — the
story of the English in Little, and early in
1847 he began in the same journal, his pleasant
468
DOUGLAS JERROLD 469
satire on female education in Capsicum House
for Young Ladies.^
We have a further gUmpse of the friendly
personality of Douglas Jerrold in Dr. Hutchison
Stirling's account of his second visit, in April
1847, to West Lodge, when :
" he was kind enough to drive us (an American with
weak eyes had dropped in) up to town. During the
ride he was particularly chatty and agreeable. He
told us of Black-Eyed Susan and Elliston ; of his early
marriage and difficulties. We had the anecdote of
the French surgeon at Boulogne, who insulted his
rheumatic agonies with ' Ce ri'est rien,' and got his
retort in return. We had erudite discourses on wines,
and descriptions of pleasant places to live in. He
told us his age. He talked of the clubs. He named
his salary from Punch. He related the history of
that publication, and revealed the authors. He
pointed out which articles were his, which Thackeray's
and which Tom Taylor's. He spoke of Percival
Leigh. We heard of Clarkson Stanfield and Jerrold's
own experiences as middy. He chatted of Dickens,
Thackeray, Leigh Hunt, Tom Taylor and Albert
Smith. Of all he spoke frankly, but discriminatively,
and without a trace of malice or ill-nature. In answer
to the inquiry, ' WTiat like was Thackeray ? ' he said :
' He's just a big fellow with a broken nose, and,
though I meet him weekly at the Punch dinner, I
don't know him so well as I know you.' Dickens
he mentioned with the greatest affection ; and the
articles of Thackeray and Tom Taylor were praised
in the most ungrudging fashion. No doubt Jerrold's
feelings were quick and his expressions hasty; no
^ Reprinted in Douglas Jerrold and " Punch,'' 1910.
470 DOUGLAS JERROLD
doubt he could say bitter things and savage things ;
but still I believe his nature to have been too loyal
to admit either of envy or jealousy.
" And so we came to Trafalgar Square; and there
we parted. And I see him now as I saw him then,
when he turned his back and climbed the stairs of the
Royal Academy."
At about this time a tardy act of justice —
or the reversal of an act of injustice — was done
Avhen the Earl of Dundonald was restored to
honours of which, as Lord Cochrane, he had
been deprived. In Jerrold the gallant seaman
who had been a patron of the Sheerness
Theatre had found a strong and convinced
advocate, and when the matter was at length
settled Dundonald wrote him the following
letter :
" 8, Chesterfield Street,
" May 10, 1847.
" Sir, — ^Your generous and very powerful advocacy
of my claim to the investigation of my case has con-
tributed to promote that act of justice and produced
a decision of the Cabinet Council, after due delibera-
tion, to recommend to her Majesty my immediate
restoration to the Order of the Bath, in which recom-
mendation her Majesty has been graciously pleased
to acquiesce.
" I would personally have waited on you, confi-
dentially to communicate this (not yet promulgated)
decree ; but as there is so little chance of finding you,
and I am pressingly occupied, I shall postpone the
pleasure and duty. I am, Sir, your obliged and
obedient servant,
" Dundonald.'?
l)()r(.i..\> tli:i!U(ii,ii, li!l(
(Front an tixjruring hy Prior of (i pho'(>i,rtijih hii B'.nrd, pHhUxhud Man 1, Is/jT)
DOUGLAS JERROLD 471
It was to the strawberry season of this year
that the following undated fragment of a
letter to Charles Dickens probably belongs, for
the " play " refers no doubt to the contem-
plation of an excursion into the north of the
Splendid Strollers.
" . . . . when, when we can count upon a dry after-
noon, won't you, and the Hidalgo, and Mac — and the
ladies come down here to a cut of country lamb and
a game of bowls ? Our turf is coming up so velvety,
I intend to have a waistcoat sliced from it, trimmed
with daisies. . . . We must have another quiet day
here between the 17th and play. I find on return,
the garden out very nice indeed ; and I wish you could
only see (and eat) the dish of strawberries just brought
in for breakfast by my girl Polly — ' all,' as she says,
' big and square as pincushions.' "
In June — ^within a twelvemonth of the
first mooting of the scheme, the Whittington
Club was an accomplished fact, and was duly
opened to its many members on the 21st of
the month. The prompt success of the venture
was indeed remarkable. Within one month of
the premises being taken — and several months
before those premises could be available for
club purposes, as many as nine hundred new
members had been enrolled. During the week
before the premises in Gresham Street were
opened a series of inaugural dinners were given,
Cowden Clarke taking the chair at the first
of them in place of the President absent through
indisposition. During the same week a meet-
ing was held at the Crown and Anchor in the
472 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Strand for the purpose of considering the
advisabihty of having additional West End
premises, it being announced that nearly seven
hundred further members had expressed their
readiness to join if such premises could be
secured. Again the President was unable to
be present, the Secretary (G. W. Yapp) reading
the following letter :
" West Lodge, Putney Loiver Common,
" June 18 [1847].
" Dear Sir, — It is to me a very great disappoint-
ment that I am denied the pleasure of being with you
on the interesting occasion of to-day ; when the club
starts into vigorous existence, entering upon — I hope
and believe — a long life of usefulness to present and
succeeding generations. I have for some days been
labouring with a violent cold, which, at the last hour,
leaves me no hope of being with you. This to me is
especially discomforting upon the high occasion the
council meet to celebrate ; for we should have but
very little to boast of by the establishment of the
club had we only founded a sort of monster chop-
house ; no great addition this to London, where chop-
houses are certainly not among the rarer monuments
of British civilization.
" We therefore recognize a higher purpose in the
Whittington Club; namely, a triumphant refutation
of a very old, respectable, but no less foolish fallacy —
for folly and respectability are somehow sometimes
found together — that female society in such an
institution is incompatible with domestic dignity.
Hitherto, Englishmen have made their club-houses
as Mahomet made his Paradise — a place where women
are not admitted on any pretext whatever. Thus
considered, the Englishman may be a very good
DOUGLAS JERROLD 473
Christian sort of a person at home, and at the same
time Httle better than a Turk at his club.
" It is for us, however, to change this. And as we
are the first to assert what may be considered a great
social principle, so it is most onerous upon us that it
should be watched with the most jealous suspicion
of whatever might in the most remote degree tend to
retard its very fullest success. Again lamenting the
cause that denies me the gratification of being with
you on so auspicious a day,
" Believe me, yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Before that gathering an annual meeting of
members of the Club— already upwards of two
thousand in number— had been held for the
election of a Council for the ensuing year, and
in Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper " a
word or two of advice " was tendered to those
who were to elect the council. " It would be
quite possible," it was declared, " for an
executive composed of men incapable of com-
prehending the large views upon which it is
based to destroy its vitality almost at a stroke,
and in far less time than it has taken to bring
it into its present flourishing condition to
scatter its prosperity to the winds." Then
came the words of advice— words which had
they been fully interpreted might have saved
us much unpleasantness and much bitterness
in the achieving of a reform which as some of
us believe is now only delayed b)^ the un-
pleasantness of its fanatical devotees and the
bitterness that is thereby engendered :
474 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Do not forget, young Whittingtons, to give
plenty of votes to the ladies. This admission of
women to every privilege of the institution, so wisely
made a fundamental principle at the very outset, is
almost the grandest feature in this society; and it
has met with most complete success. We understand
that even in dry committees of business the work is
far better done — in less time and with much more
order and regularity — when ladies attend fully, than
at other times. It would therefore be a matter for
great regret to find the proportion of ladies on the
council in any serious degree diminished; far better
were it to increase it much. It would not be too
much to expect to see twenty ladies amongst the
fifty members, while the lady vice-presidents are far
too few. This will, beyond a doubt, right itself in
time; but the members must take care in no one
point to go back, but to urge forward the full develop-
ment of all the grand outlines of their noble and
energetic association."
Though the Whittington Club made a bril-
liant start, and flourished for some years, it
scarcely achieved the hopes of its founder.
It was perhaps before its time, to use the
familiar locution, and if it did not last long
itself was yet among the pioneers that opened up
new fields of social energy and enlightenment.
But though its story as among such pioneers
might not be without interest, that story
cannot be followed here, where it is but an
incident in Jerrold's biography.
In July 1847 Charles Dickens arranged to
give, with his company of Splendid Strollers,
performances of Every Man in his Humour in
DOUGLAS JERROLD 475
Manchester (July 26), and Liverpool (July 28),
the proceeds to be for the benefit of that
veteran poet, journalist, and man of letters,
Leigh Hunt. Jerrold and Dickens were invited
while at Manchester to be the guests of Alex-
ander Ireland — later to be known as author of
the Book Lover's Enchiridion— hut the company
had agreed to " keep together " and so they
could not accept. The story of that splendid
strolling is told in Forster's Life of Charles
Dickens, where we learn that though the takings
were £440 at Manchester and £463 at Liverpool
— as a Liverpudlian I am glad to know that the
latter town proved the more generous ! — ^the
net result for the Leigh Hunt fund was but
four hundred guineas, and Dickens had hoped
for five hundred. To make up the sum he
proposed issuing a little brochure giving Mrs.
Gamp's account of the expedition into the
north, but this scheme fell through, says
Forster, owing to the lack of readiness on the
part of the artists among the strollers to do
the necessary illustrations. Dickens only wrote
the introductory portion, in which Mrs. Gamp
sees the company at the railway station at
setting out, but of that the bit in which she
deals with the dehnquencies of Jerrold may
well find a place here :
" If you'll believe me, Mrs. Harris, I turns my head,
and sees the wery man [Cruikshank] a making pic-
tures of me on his thumb nail, at the winder ! while
another of 'em [Leech] — a tall, slim, melancolly gent,
with dark hair and a bage vice — looks over his
476 DOUGLAS JERROLD
shoulder, with his head o' one side as if he understood
the subject, and coolly says, ' Vve draw'd her several
times — in Punch,'' he says too ! The owdacious
wretch !
" ' Which I never touches, Mr. Wilson,' I remarks
out loud — I couldn't have helped it, Mrs. Harris, if
you had took my life for it ! — ' which I never touches,
Mr. Wilson, on account of the lemon ! '
" ' Hush ! ' says Mr. Wilson, ' there he is ! '
" I only see a fat gentleman with curly black hair
and a merry face [Mark Lemon], a standing on the
platform rubbing his two hands over one another, as
if he was washing of 'em, and shaking his head and
shoulders wery much ; and I was a wondering wot
Mr. Wilson meant, wen he says, ' There's Dougladge,
Mrs. Gamp ! ' he says. ' There's* him as wrote the
life of Mrs. Caudle ! '
" Mrs. Harris, wen I see that little willain bodily
before me, it give me such a turn that I was all in a
tremble. If I hadn't lost my umbereller in the cab,
I must have done him a injury with it ! Oh, the
bragian little traitor ! right among the ladies, Mrs.
Harris ; looking his wickedest and deceitfullest of eyes
while he was a talking to 'em ; laughing at his own
jokes as loud as you please ; holding his hat in one hand
to cool hisself, and tossing back his iron grey mop
of a head of hair with the other, as if it was so much
shavings — there, Mrs. Harris, I see him, getting en-
couragement from the pretty delooded creeturs, which
never know'd that sweet saint, Mrs. C, as I did and
being treated with as much confidence as if he'd never
wiolated none of the domestic ties, and never showed
up nothing ! Oh, the aggrawation of that Dougladge !
Mrs. Harris, if I hadn't apologiged to Mi*. Wilson, and
put a little bottle to my lips which was in my pocket
for the journey, and which it is very rare indeed I
DOUGLAS JERROLD 477
have about me, I could not have abared the sight of
him — there, IVIrs. Harris ! I could not ! — I must have
tore him, or have give way and fainted."
One pleasantry from among the many lively
things that were, we may be sure, said by the
lively company, has been recorded, having
been recalled by the victim, Frank Stone.
On the journey to Manchester that artist had
replaced his chimney-pot hat by a travelling
cap, and on arrival at the station was again
about to change when turning to Jerrold he
said, " Look here, my hat is half full of rubbish."
'* Never mind, my dear fellow, it is used to
that," was the reply.
The brief " strolling " at an end the party
returned to London, whence Jerrold and his
family set out for the Channel Islands for a
short holiday. Sending a proof of an article
for the September number of the magazine to
Chorley he wrote :
" I am off on Saturday, Shall you be near the
Museum Club any time from six to nine on Thursday ?
I shall be there. I send you cheque, with best wishes
for all comfort in your approaching holiday. I go
to solitude in Sark, ' far amid the melancholy main.'
Such a place for a man to lie upon his back and hear
' the waves moan for sleep that never comes.' "
It is from Sark that the next short note
to Forster is addressed on August 9 :
*^&'
" My dear Forster, — I tried hard to call upon
you ere I left London ; not that I had aught to say,
save ' Good-bve.' I am here in this most wild, most
478 DOUGLAS JERROLD
solitary and most beautiful place. No dress — no
fashion — ^no ' respectability ' — nothing but beauty
and grandeur; with the sea rolling, and roaring at
times, 'twixt me and Fleet Street, as though I should
never walk there again.
" I received a letter from Hunt : should you meet
on Saturday — indeed, I will make it a case that you
do ; and about six will — ^here in Sark — take wine with
both of you. Tell him this and believe me,
" Yours ever,
" Douglas Jerrold.
" How capitally we railed it up to town."
It is, perhaps, to this visit to the Channel
Islands, that a humorous sketch which I have
belongs. The sketch, evidently done by a
friend for Polly Jerrold, represents what Hood
termed pain in a pleasure boat. Douglas
Jerrold is standing at the tiller, saying " Ease
her head ! we shall reach directly, girls," with
four ladies — his wife and Polly among them —
in different stages of oceanic unhappiness and
making various painful exclamations. It was,
I think, on this stay that Jane (Mrs. Henry
Mayhew) was also with her parents, and was
so ill that, as her father afterwards declared,
she had made " a runaway knock at Death's
door ! "
Back again at home and at work, Jerrold
found that his public appearances at Birming-
ham and Manchester and in connection with
the Whittington Club led to fresh demands
upon his energies in a field for which he felt
himself unfitted, that of speaker from public
DOUGLAS JERROLD 479
platforms. He knew that with him the pen
was mightier than the tongue in stating the
case in which he beheved for the widening of
education, of social opportunity, and of political
influence, and realized that the hours spent
on a public platform represented far more than
was apparent in loss of working time. To an
invitation from Burslem he replied :
" West Lodge, Putney, Surrey,
" September 24 [1847].
" Sir, — Most cheerfully would I comply with the
wish of the Committee of the Burslem Mechanics'
Institution — a wish that conveys an honour — to be
present at the celebration of their Anniversary Soiree
in November; but I can scarcely hope for that satis-
faction. I am so much occupied, so much pre-
engaged, that even two days' absence from London
at the period named would conflict with the perform-
ance of prior duties. On any future occasion I shall
be happy to respond to the wishes of the Committee
of the Institution ; in November next, I fear I cannot
enjoy the gratification.
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
It was presumably to some similar invitation
sent through a friend that he replied with the
following :
" My dear Tomlins, — I would most willingly
accede to your wish — and should feel honoured by
the position which it assigns me, but I cannot, and
must not, give the time. You know these matters
do not merely employ the evening : they unfit for
480 DOUGLAS JERROLD
the next day; and to fulfil the engagements I have
in hand I have not a day 'tween this and Xmas.
I hope you are well and prospering.
" Yours ever truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
That friend was Frederick Guest Tomlins,
who was sub-editor of Jerrold's newspaper, and
a notable figure among the minor writers of
the time— journalist, dramatic and art critic,
and historian, he was also clerk to a City
company — ^the Painter Stainers — for the last
three years of his life, and had earlier been
a publisher and a dealer in second-hand books.
His bookseller's shop was at the corner of
Great Russell Street and Caroline Street. His
godson (Mr. Philip F. Allen) tells me that his
instincts as collector were greater than as
dealer, and that on one occasion a " gentleman
came in and wanted to buy a certain book.
Tomlins held the volume lovingly, paused a
moment and then declined to sell it. The
would-be customer protested and insisted on a
price being named. Tomlins told him to go
to the devil^ — and the man shot out of the
shop."
The year 1847 saw a fresh attack on Punch
and its writers in the form of a sixpenny
booklet entitled Anti-Punch ; or the Toy Shop
in Fleet Street, in the course of which Jerrold,
as " Diddleus Jackal," and his colleagues were
treated to somewhat heavy fun, in the form of
parody and otherwise. Thackeray was ridi-
culed as " Correggio Rafaello Snob Swamper,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 481
the most audacious biped (Benjamin Sidonia
and Diddleus Jackal always excepted) in the
British empire"; the Caudle Lectures were
made fun of and any number of feeble jokes
cracked in pretended imitation of Punch. The
booklet is only worthy of notice in that it
seems not before to have found mention in
connection with the history of Punch. In the
autumn of this year, too, Punch found a feeble
outside defender in the person of J. R. Adam,
*' the Cremorne Poet," who published in
pamphlet form " A Word with Bunn, after
Burns's Address to the Deil,^^ which has hitherto
remained unnoticed by those who have dealt
with Bunn's A Word with Punch. A couple
of stanzas may illustrate its quality :
" No doubt you think a glorious hit
You've made against him, cramm'd with wit,
And all your own, too — that's the bit —
Yours every word !
'Gainst three your genius bright to fit
You ne'er demurr'd.
•' The ' Douglas,' as the trio's chief
You've there brought forth in high relief —
Relieved of all of man, in brief,
Except the head —
But in that lies, you'll find with grief.
Enough to dread.*'
Before the close of 1847 both the newspaper
and the magazine were beginning to flag; the
former appears to have suffered from the cessa-
tion of the weekly gossip around the Barber's
VOL. II. i
482 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Chair which the editor brought to a close in
March with the twentieth number, and the
latter had suffered also from the breaks in
the publishing of Jerrold's serial, which con-
cluded in the number for May — its serial
appearance, with gaps, having spread over
nearly two years, nor was the story which
followed — The Dreamer and the Worker , by
R. H. Home, of a circulation-raising kind.
Blanchard Jerrold has said that both periodicals
suffered from their editor's too-easy acquies-
cence in the acceptance of contributions from
friends whose work was not always suited,
from his being too ready to allow his pages to
be overcrowded with heavy matter. Truth
to tell, he does not appear to have been suited
to the task of editing in the full sense that
meant exercising control over all parts of a
paper or magazine. It was easier for him to
say yes than no, even when policy dictated
the negative. There was about his genius a
quick impulsiveness that fired him to instant
self-expression but which made him flag when
the end was not attained at once. He tired of
the routine work of editorship, and probably
suffered, too, from the anxiety as to the great
difference for him that lay between complete
success and any degree of failure. In the
newspaper he began at the end of November
a fresh series of the Barber^s Chair with all
the old satire and sparkle, and set out on the
writing of a fresh serial story for the magazine,
as is hinted in the following note :
DOUGLAS JERROLD 483
" December 6 [1847].
" My dear Chorley, — I apprehend there can be
no objection to your reprinting Paul Bell.^
" Touching the ' Education Papers ' I would rather
defer them. I fear we have been a Kttle too didactic,
and must amend the fault. Give me — if you can —
two or three papers; rather than one long one. For
this reason. I begin a story — unwillingly enough.
But when a man's name is over the door, people
expect to have him now and then serving in the
bar. — Well, with a long continuous tale, I want short
papers to make a variety. My printer gives me hence-
forth the 20th of the month as the last day. May I
look for something ?
" Yours truly,
" D. Jerrold."
The revived " Barber's Chair " was prefaced
by a letter from Oliver Cromwell Nutts, the
barber himself, explaining that the reason for his
silence of some months was that he had come
into a little money, had travelled abroad, and
having left the Seven Dials was opening
" another shop, in what Mrs. Nutts calls
' something like a respectable situation.' "
He had wanted to open the shop at once, but
Mrs. Nutts declared that it would be dis-
respectful to do so before Parliament was
sitting.
" Well, sir, whether it was virtue or weakness — for
sometimes they're so much alike, that for all the world,
as with mushrooms and toadstools, there's no knowing
^ A series of articles by H. C. Chorley which had ap-
peared with that signature in the magazine.
484 DOUGLAS JERROLD
the difference — I declared I would not touch chin
with razor till all the Commons had been lathered
with the royal speech, and Lord John begun in good
earnest to take the state of the country by the nose.
. . . This meeting of Parliament is, I understand (with
what old Slowgoe calls the Insanitary Measure) — to
be known as the Session of Soap. I've a cake of my
own, between ourselves, which I intend to patent —
with good Lord Morpeth's head upon it on one side
like a medal ; and on the other this motto — ' A
Government with clean hands makes a clean and happy
people.' My wife, with an eye to the consequence of
her own sex, wanted — ' Britannia rules the suds ! '
But mine is the larger sentiment ; for doesn't the
political swallow the domestic ? "
As motto to his letter Nutts put '* Like to a
Censor in a barber's chair " and then added
by way of postscript to his letter :
" The motto — Mr. John Payne Collier tells me — is
not quite right. The word ought to be ' censer,'
which means, he says, a basin. But sir, when you
want a word to suit your purpose, what signifies an
0 for an e ? Besides censer and censor are often so
much alike, one being no deeper than the other."
In the issue of the newspaper dated Christ-
mas Day it was announced that the January
number of the magazine would contain the
first part of a new story by the editor, to be
called Twiddlethumb Town ^ — in which story, the
speculations, sayings and doings of the Twiddle-
thumblings — ^their social and political condition
^ Tales by Douglas Jerrold, Now First Collected, 1891,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 485
— ^their customs and manners — ^will be related
with, it is hoped, a fidehty and gravity becom-
ing the historian of a people hitherto singularly
neglected by all chroniclers." The first of the
promised twelve instalments of the quaintly
named story duly appeared in the opening
number of the magazine for 1848. And the
story itself must have struck many readers by
its quaintness, by the way in which in present-
ing an account of a town and its inhabitants
far removed from the " vulgar cities of the
hard real world— a world easily laid down upon
a map, or pelleted into a painted globe," the
writer could indulge at once his poetic fancy
and his keen satire. How the story— if story
it is to be termed — would have developed it is
impossible to say, for its delicious inconsequence,
its satiric fancifulness, broke off abruptly after
but half-a-dozen instalments, which, however,
have much of the beauty and charm of the
Chronicles of Clovernook ; it would seem that
in such imaginative fanciful musings and
descriptions, shot through with meaning,
Douglas Jerrold found one of the readiest
methods of self-expression. And though it
was not by such of his writings that popularity
was won, it is by such that he is hkely best to
be recalled by those who dehght in the niceties
of literary expression.
In January George Cruikshank was to have
paid a visit to West Lodge, but sent instead
the following note— with his elaborately self-
conscious signature :
486 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Amwell St., January 8, 1848.
" My dear Jerrold, — My ' better half,' whom
you will recollect I told you was very ill — is now so
much better that she has expressed a wish to pay
a visit to a friend who lives a short distance from town
to-morrow. The chronicler of the ' Caudles ' will
know that a wish under these circumstances amounts
to a command which I am bound to obey. I must
therefore postpone the pleasure of my visit to
Barnes Common to some other opportunity and
remain,
" Yours truly,
" Geo. Cruikshank."
In the spring of this year of political unrest
all over Europe occurred the revolution in
Paris which brought to a close the reign of
the Citizen King, Louis Philippe, and it was
suggested to Jerrold that his going to Paris
as his own special correspondent would give
a fillip to the newspaper which it was showing
signs of needing. He was not at all fitted by
taste and temperament for the task ; he " the
most helpless of men," according to his son —
one who " never brushed his hat, never opened
a drawer to find a collar, never knew where he
had put his stick " — was scarcely suited for the
rough and tumble of the life of a special corre-
spondent in time of revolution. Reluctantly,
it may well be believed, he was persuaded to
set out for the French capital with George
Hodder as secretary to help him in collecting
the materials for his articles. It was in early
March that they started, and Douglas Jerrold
DOUGLAS JERROLD 487
reported their safe arrival in the French capital
in the following letter to his wife :
*" Hdtel d^ Holland, Rue de la Paix [Paris],
" March 9 [1848], Monday.
" My dear Mary, — We arrived here last night —
and have found comfortable quarters. Paris is
perfectly quiet. Excepting a few stones up in the
street there is no outward sign of a revolution. I
shall not be away more than a fortnight ; but keep
this to yourself. There will be nothing here but what
I might do as well at home, until the time of the
elections, the middle of next month — and then — or a
little after then — I will not answer for anything.
And then I should not care about being in Paris.
" The house is comfortable enough for France. It
has all the privacy of a lodging; meals and so forth
sent up into the rooms.
" Hodder is already a little tedious — but I shall be
as much to myself as possible. I have got no French
paper — so write thus to save postage .^ Love to
Polly, and all. I will write again in a day or two.
" God bless you,
" Your affectionate husband,
" D. Jerrold."
If Hodder was found " a little tedious " on
the second day, it did not promise well for the
fortnight's companionship, and indeed, as has
been said, the work which Jerrold had under-
taken was not of the kind for which he was
suited; he was the square peg in the round
hole, and evidently quite conscious of the
fact that he did not fit. He took letters of
^ On a half sheet of paper.
488 DOUGLAS JERROLD
introduction to Lamartine, Ledru Rollin and
other leaders, but did not present them,
though Hodder " frequently reminded him "
that they had not been delivered. He felt
wholly unequal to the task which had been
thrust upon him ; as Hodder put it : " The
work he had embarked in was totally unsuited
to him, and it was really grievous to notice the
expression of his countenance, as, morning after
morning, the post brought him a letter from
his locum tenens in London, Mr. Frederick
Guest Tomlins, complaining of his shortcomings
and urging him to return, or to act in a manner
more worthy of his ambition and of the known
reputation he bore." Another glimpse of the
unhappy correspondent may be given in
Hodder's words :
" I observed that his mornings were often dis-
turbed by visits from John Poole, the author of
Paul Pry, who had for many years been living in
Paris ; and though Jerrold never distinctly told me
the object of his seeking him, it was evident from the
manner of the latter, and from a few broken sentences
he muttered, that there was some cause for coldness
between them. ' Poor Poole ! ' he exclaimed one day,
after receiving a visit from him ; ' he has not made
the best of his chances in life.' At another time he
observed that Poole was never heard to say a good
thing; but that if an idea struck him he would
' book it for his next magazine article.' Amongst
others who sought Jerrold's acquaintance in Paris
was the Rev. Francis Mahony (' Father Prout '), and
I had the gratification of meeting the two men at a
little dinner party at the residence of Mr. Thomas
DOUGLAS JERROLD 489
Frazer, the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle,
on the Boulevard des Capucines. Even on that
occasion it was noticeable that Jerrold was ill at ease,
and was not much disposed to talk upon the subject
which at that period naturally absorbed the attention
of the community. Indeed, he constantly reflected,
both in society and when alone, that his visit to Paris
had involved a loss of time and money, and that on
his return home, he should not receive that hearty
welcome from his fellow-workers on the newspaper
which his public position would otherwise have led
him to expect. When the morning came for his
departure — about a fortnight after his arrival — he
openly acknowledged that his mission to Paris had
been a failure; and as he was arranging his port-
manteau he took therefrom a small packet, and throw-
ing it into the fire, said, ' There are my letters of
introduction ! ' "
Hodder, who stayed on in Paris, seeking to
pick up information which he could utilize in
letters to the London press, has recorded some
of his impressions of Jerrold's talk at the time
which help us to realize his character :
" Jerrold never shone to better advantage than
when he was talking worldly wisdom to those who
were glad to profit by what he taught them. Indeed,
as a rule, he was an acceptable monitor, and did not
give his advice in a patronizing or dictatorial spirit,
but seemed to make himself tolerably sure that his
words would at least be cheerfully received, if not,
perhaps, fully acted upon. It was during our stay
in Paris that he said some of those ' good things '
which have since bestrewn the paths of literature,
and as they have now become the common property
490 DOUGLAS JERROLD
of the reading and talking world, I shall avoid the
risk of repetition by quoting only one or two of his
bits of wisdom, which might, not inaptly, come under
the category of ' advice to young men.' Talking of
marriage he said he would never advise a man to
choose a wife on account of her intellect any more
than for the sake of her money. ' As to myself,' he
added, ' since I have been married I have never known
what it is to turn down my own socks.' Speaking of
young authors allowing their names to appear among
the contributors to various publications at one and
the same time, instead of concentrating their energies
upon some work of an enduring character, he said,
' Don't scatter your small shot.' In allusion to the
vice of getting into debt, he remarked that a man
must be forgiven for providing meat and bread upon
credit, ' but he has no right to do this sort of thing
in the same way ' (pointing to a bottle of wine before
him). On my telling him that I had just attempted
a little story in verse, and that I should be glad if he
could recommend it for publication, he said, ' Why not
walk, and tell the same thing in prose ? ' He once
told me a little story, which, as it seems to have
escaped the notice of those who have written about
him, although it may possibly be known in some
shape, I shall introduce here, especially as Jerrold
used to say the incident came within his own ex-
perience. A passenger, well-to-do in the world, had
fallen overboard at sea, and his life was saved by an
Irish sailor who jumped in after him. As a reward
for the trifling service which his preserver had ren-
dered him, the generous passenger presented him mth
sixpence ! Whereupon the sailor, looking him full in
the face, and scanning him from head to foot with
a smile of supreme contempt, exclaimed, in a rich
Hibernian brogue, ' Be Jabers, it's enough ! ' "
DOUGLAS JERROLD 491
The excursion to Paris had been a failure,
and the editor's temperament was not of a
kind to make him continue much interest in a
f aihng venture ; if the paper was f aiHng it must
fail — he had not the business energy necessary
to convert an instant success into a permanent
one, and thus when from a variety of circum-
stances Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper
began flagging, his interest in it also flagged ; it
passed into other hands, became amalgamated
with another periodical, and in that form came
to an end at the close of 1849. Jerrold was
relieved of anxious work which at first bade
fair to leave him master of a piece of property
of lasting value — instead of which it left him
responsible for a heavy debt, a debt which was
only discharged at his death by an insurance
policy, duly set aside for the purpose, which then
fell due. The paper which had started so well,
had indeed rapidly taken the place of a paying
property, did not last for two years, and the
Shilling Magazine came to an abrupt conclusion
a little later, having continued for but three
and a half years. It is given to few men to
be at once gifted writers and good practical
editors, and Douglas Jerrold was not of the
number. He was too much inclined to dissi-
pate his talents in the very way he deprecated
a young writer's doing. Had the energies
which were spread over the magazine, Punch
and the newspaper been concentrated on the
last named, had the editor been enabled to
use that only as the medium for expressing his
492 DOUGLAS JERROLD
strong views in his own peculiar fashion, it
might well have become the permanently
valuable property he had hoped.
If there was something of sadness in the
failure of both of these projects, the success
of which would have meant so much, it may
well be that the mercurial editor of them had
so far lost heart when they began to droop that
it was a relief to be free of them altogether,
a pleasure to turn to something newly hopeful.
The work which he turned to was that of a
long novel to be issued in parts — a step perhaps
more or less inevitable seeing the great success
which attended several writers whose stories
were being issued in that form since Dickens's
Pickwick had established the fashion. Dickens
had been producing his novels in parts for ten
years; Thackeray, already the author of such
brilliant work as Barry Lyndon, had achieved
delayed popularity with Vanity Fair, issued in
separate instalments, and the proposal was
made to Douglas Jerrold that he should follow
on the same lines. Free of paper and magazine,
and with no serial work in Punch, he set to
work on a novel. The Man Made of Money, and
the first of its six parts was published in the
early autumn.
The venture was successful, but not in any-
thing like the same degree as were the serials
of Dickens and Thackeray, for Jerrold's gifts
were not such as to make this form of publica-
tion suitable to their presentation. Though he
is remembered mainly as a wit and a humorist.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 493
he was a man of deep and serious feeling who
but rarely — as in the Caudle Lectures — allowed
his humour to travel far over the page with-
out seeking to make it carry its share of
purpose. The public at large prefer the pur-
pose of a work of fiction to be diffused over it
as a whole, that it may even be ignored by the
searcher after mere entertainment, and Jer-
rold's work suffered thus in the general regard
from having its purpose pointedly accentuated
on well-nigh every page. If, however. The Man
Made of Money did not rival the triumphs of
Dickens and Thackeray in popular regard — its
supernatural machinery was no doubt a severe
handicap — it was yet far short of being a
failiu'e, and was hailed as being its author's
best work.
One contemporary critic who recognized the
essential seriousness of Douglas Jerrold's nature
wrote :
" Like all earnest persons, Mr. Jerrold has certain
points of peculiarly strong feeling, certain favourite
contemplations, in which his mind, if left to itself,
will always necessarily settle. Let us note one or two
of these ingredients, if we may call them such, of
Mr. Jerrold's severer nature.
" And first, in that oldest and most general of human
contemplations, the transitoriness of life, and the
littleness of all we see, we find him specially at home.
That truly we live in a vain show, that our days are
numbered, that round our world there lies an unknown
Infinite, is a thought most familiar to him. Nor is
this so slight a thing to be said of a writer. This
494 DOUGLAS JERROLD
familiarity with the idea of mortahty, this sense of
the supernatural, is the basis of all genuine feeling;
and different minds have it in very different degrees.
In Mr. Jerrold it is developed to an unusual extent;
and in this one respect, at least, he is superior to
Mr. Thackeray, who, though he too, of course, knows
that the world is a Vanity Fair, seems yet somehow
rather to have intellectually ascertained the fact,
than to believe it."
Referring to this novel, the late George
Augustus Sala said that " Douglas Jerrold, as
a letter- writer, wrote a bold, decisive hand;
but his ' copy ' was in almost microscopically
small characters. I have seen the bound manu-
script of his strange novel A Man Made of
Money; and I doubt whether even a reader
with powerful eyes could decipher that MS.
without the aid of a magnifying glass." Jerrold
certainly did not write a " bold decisive hand
as a letter- writer." It may, however, be noted
that his writing generally was much smaller
in his later years than it had been, judging by
those of his earlier letters that have been
preserved; it was said that his "copy"
occupied no more space than it would when
set in type.
Though there was no serial from Jerrold's
pen appearing this year in Punch he was con-
tinuing week by week his many contributions
as one of the principal writers, and on occasion
of holidays or ill-health was at times left with
the task of producing the paper, as is suggested
by the following note :
DOUGLAS JERROLD 495
" Friday [August 25, 1848], ' Punch ' Office.
" My dear Forster, — I am compelled to go and
see Leech to-morrow on plate affairs, hence cannot, I
am sorry to say it (really sorry), be with you and
Hmit.
" Lemon has been at death's door — but has kept on
the outside.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
Another note which is undated has been
allotted to this year, though it may belong to
the previous one — when he was certainly in the
Channel Islands :
" My dear Forster, — ^Do you know Gurney —
him of the shorthand ? If so, will you give me a
line of introduction for a deserving intelligent young
man who has made himself an accomplished phono-
graphist : he is a younger brother of Wigan's (have
you, by the way, seen his Mons. Jaques ?). I have
been for some days at Guernsey — returning yesterday.
I will drop in upon the chance of seeing you this
week — perhaps Thursday afternoon.
" Truly yours,
"D. Jerrold."
Towards the close of this year Mary Cowden
Clarke published her pocket volume of Shake-
speare Proverbs ; or. The Wisest Saws of Our
Wisest Poet collected into a Modern Instance,
with a dedication which ran : *' To Douglas
Jerrold, the first wit of the present age, these
Proverbs of Shakespeare, the first wit of any
age, are inscribed by Mary Cowden Clarke, of a
496 DOUGLAS JERROLD
certain age, and no wit at all." A copy of the
work duly reached West Lodge, and the
dedicatee acknowledging the gift said :
" West Lodge, Putney, December 31 [1848].
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — You must imagine that
all this time I have been endeavouring to regain my
breath, taken away by your too-partial dedication.
To find my name on such a page, and in such company,
I feel like a sacrilegious knave who has broken into a
church and is making off with the Communion plate.
One thing is plain, Shakespeare had great obligations,
but this last inconsiderate act has certainly cancelled
them all. I feel that I ought never to speak or write
again, but go down to the grave with my thumb
in my mouth. It is the only chance I have of not
betraying my pauper-like unworthiness to the associa-
tion with which you have — ^to the utter wreck of your
discretion — ^astounded me.
" The old year is dying, with the dying fire whereat
this is penned. That, however, you may have many,
many happy years (though they can only add to the
remorse for what you have done) is the sincere wish
of yours truly (if you will not show the word to Clarke,
I will say affectionately),
" Douglas Jerrold."
CHAPTER XV
*' THE WITTIEST MAN IN LONDON " — A ROLL-
ING STONE — TRIP TO IRELAND — DIFFERENCE
WITH DICKENS — PUBLIC HANGING — THE
MUSEUM CLUB
1849
A CRITICAL estimate of Douglas Jerrold
which was written in 1849 summed him up
in a passage that may well be quoted here
as indicative of the position to which he had
then attained :
" Were any person tolerably familiar with the
great metropolis asked who is the wittiest man in
it, he would infallibly answer, ' Douglas Jerrold.'
There may be men reputed his equals or superiors
in general conversation; but in that one quality
called wit, in the power of sharp and instant repartee,
and, above all, in the knack of demolishing an
opponent by some resistless pun upon his meaning,
Douglas Jerrold is, among London literary men,
unrivalled. On paper there are some who may
come near him ; but in witty talk among his friends
he is facile princeps. His eager vehement face, as
he presides at a wit -combat anywhere within a four
miles' circuit of Temple Bar, is a sight worth seeing,
If he is telling a story, all present are attentive; if
he and some luckless antagonist become hooked in
VOL. II. 497 K
498 DOUGLAS JERROLD
a two-handed encounter, the rest pleasantly look
on, expecting the result ; or, if somebody else is
speaking, he will sit apart, quietly and even sympa-
thetically listen, but in the end detect his opening,
and ruin all with his pitiless flash. No second part
would he have played in the famous wit -combats of
the Mermaid Tavern in Friday Street, where, more
than two hundred years ago, Rocky Ben and his
companions used to drink their canary ; and, had he
sat beside poor Goldy at the meetings of the Literary
Club of last century, ponderous Samuel himself, we
are inclined to think, would have kept an uneasy eye
upon that end of the table. It is thus that Douglas
Jerrold is known in literary circles of London."
In the regard of those who knew him person-
ally, the same writer went on to say, his conver-
sational wit was such that they looked too much
in his writings for the same qualities of wit
and did not sufficiently recognize the under-
lying earnestness, while in the eyes of the
public the fact that it was his most broadly
humorous work which had achieved the
widest popularity made the general reader
also inclined to overlook his essential serious-
ness, while those who mainly knew him as an
incisive writer on the radical side looked
somewhat askance at such of his work as did
not bear directly on social and political
questions.
Though the promised new play for Benjamin
Webster was apparently not yet finished —
another year was to pass before it made its
stage appearance — there were some revivals
DOUGLAS JERROLD 499
of Jerrold's earlier theatre triumphs during
the first part of this year. In 1848-9 a
series of dramatic entertainments were given
at Windsor Castle by command of the Queen,
and on January 25, 1849, the principal piece
chosen — performed by the Haymarket Com-
pany—was The Housekeeper, when the Court
audience included besides Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert, the child Prince of Wales, the
Princess Royal and the Duchess of Kent. A
week later, the pretty comedy was revived
at the Haymarket, and a few weeks later it
was followed on the same stage by a revival of
the same author's Rent Day.
Some time in this year Douglas Jerrold's
eldest son, William Blanchard Jerrold, married
Lavinia, the daughter of Laman Blanchard,
whose death a few years earlier had been a
severe blow to his old friend. Blanchard had
left a young family, the care of which seems to
have exercised his friends, for the following
letter to John Forster concerns one of them :
" My dear Forster, — Walter Blanchard has been
very ill — so ill that he has been absent from business
for the past seven weeks : during which time — upon
my introduction — he has been attended in the kindest
manner by Erasmus Wilson. His opinion is this;
that no good can be effected upon the lad unless he
leaves for a total change of air. As one of the
ignorant laity, he appears to me to be in a very
precarious condition. Now comes the question —
(a question / should not put had not calls of late
come on me ' fast and furious ') — do any means
500 DOUGLAS JERROLD
remain to provide the wherewithal for a temporary
removal ? Walter could visit his uncle for the time
at Belfast — and, as I believe, Wilson recommends
the voyage. Somehow the lad must be removed —
there will, I doubt not, be a lingering illness, with
finis. There appears to me consumption, but his
father had its signs at his age.
" Ever truly yours,
" D. Jerrold.
" Mr. Hunt has been applied to, and has referred
to you. Hinc hcec epistolce.^^
That there were many calls on Douglas
Jerrold, as he says in this letter, there can be
little doubt, and the time of which we are
treating is one when the recent failure of his
bold experiment in seeking to build up a
newspaper property had left him seriously
embarrassed. A letter from his brother Henry
which has been lent me seems to reflect upon
his willingness to give him assistance, but that
brother had been helped again and again both
by Douglas and by his sisters, and always
turned up after a while imperturbably asking
for " more." Having at one time sought^ —
and failed to find — his fortunes in Australia,
news was sent home to his sister Elizabeth
that he had died, and that money was required
to pay the consequent expenses of the funeral.
The money was sent out; time passed^ — and
Henry Jerrold duly turned up at his sister's
home in Liverpool, to be met with the exclama-
tion, " Henry ! but you are dead ! " " Yes,
I am Lazarus, returned from the dead," he
DOUGLAS JERROLD 501
coolly replied. That same sister, by the way,
I have been told, declared that Henry was no
less gifted than Douglas, but lacked the power
of making use of his gifts. The "begging letter "
of his which has been put before me bears no
name or address, but does, between the lines,
afford evidence that his family had tired of
coming to his assistance :
" Bromphm,
" March 23, 1849.
" Sir, — As I cannot pass your female Cerberus so
that I could say a few words to you in proprice pers.,
permit me thus to solicit your kind courtesy and
generous sympathy. Sir, — I have long since quitted
the stage ; ever since my brother-in-law Hammond
relinquished the York Circuit, and have since been
dependent upon the printing business, either as
reporter or compositor — my original profession with
old Oxberry ; but of late I have been most peculiarly
unfortunate, for / have been without a situation nearly
two years ! — during which period I have traversed
the whole of the United Kingdom. The consequence
has been that I have parted with every article of
disposable property that would yield us a shilling.
I say us, for I have a wife,^ who, like myself, is
exceedingly ill and almost maddened with excessive
travel and privation. I have not at this moment
the means of procuring a breakfast, and have walked
upwards of four miles in the piercing cold — half
clothed, for I have sold my wrapper [written over
great coat]. However humiliating such an appeal
as this, I have at present, unfortunately, no other
alternative. It is a shame that it should be so, for
^ Mrs. Henry Jerrold died at the age of forty-five, at
Durham, at the end of 1850,
502 DOUGLAS JERROLD
my brother Douglas assuredly possesses the power
to serve me, but wants the heart. Mary told me
that, as usual, he was, like Sheridan, still embarrassed.
With his income, more shame for him. As for me, I
never wish to see him more — he is most heartless
to me, for he could well spare me a few pounds
and procure me some employment if he chose to
do so.
After the news of Hammond's death, I went to
see my sister in Liverpool, and, not succeeding in
getting employment there, I crossed the Channel and
tried Clonmel, thinking that during the commission
I might earn a few pounds as a reporter, but I was too
late, and, buoyed up by Hope — which is like a cork
jacket to a drowning wretch, journeyed onwards
1500 miles through Ireland, till my ill fortune, like an
ignis fatuus, has left me in her degrading slough.
Allow me, Sir, I most earnestly beseech you, the loan
of a few shillings, as many as you can spare — to
relieve us from our present wretched necessities and
you shall find, believe me, that ingratitude forms no
part of the composition of, Sir,
" Yours ever truly,
" Henry Jerrold.
" I rely on the goodness of your nature.
" (Endorsed—
" I will call again in half-an-hour for your
kind reply,
" Henry Jerrold."
It is not possible to find to whom it was
this appeal was addressed, nor to follow the
fortunes of Henry Jerrold, for beyond certain
family stories of his cheerful irresponsibility,
his light-hearted acceptance of help, and one
DOUGLAS JERROLD 503
or two references to his appearance on the
stage in minor parts, I find nothing about
him.
Early in May 1849 Charles Dickens gave a
dinner to celebrate the commencement of the
publication of David Copperfield — a dinner of
which, seeing the company that was present,
it would be interesting to have had some fuller
record than that given by Forster, for those
present included Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle,
Thackeray, Samuel Rogers, Mrs. Gaskell,
Douglas Jerrold and Hablot K. Browne.
Forster recalled but little of the dinner except
that Carlyle sat next to a classical gentle-
man with whose sentiments he had but little
sympathy and whose questions to him were
becoming tiresome when Thackeray broke in
with a whimsical story and eased the strain.
This spring seems to have brought Jerrold
another sharp attack of the old eye trouble,
as we learn from the following letter to Charles
Cowden Clarke. The shooting at the Queen
had taken place on May 19.
" Friday, Putney.
" My dear Clarke, — I have but a blind excuse to
offer for my long silence to your last : but the miser-
able truth is, I have been in darkness with acute
inflammation of the eye; something like toothache
in the eye — and very fit to test a man's philosophy;
when he can neither read nor write and has no other
consolation save first to discover his own virtues,
and when caught to contemplate them. I assure
you it's devilish difficult to put one's hand upon one's
504 DOUGLAS JERROLD
virtue in a dark room. As well try to catch fleas in
' the blanket o' the dark.' By this, however, you
will perceive that I have returned to paper and ink.
The doctor tells me that the inflammation fell upon
me from an atmospheric blight, rife in these parts
three weeks ago. / think I caught it at Hyde Park
Corner, where for three minutes I paused to see the
Queen pass after being fired at. She looked very
well, and — as is not always the case with women —
none the worse for powder. To be sure, considering
they give princesses a salvo of artillery with their
first pap — they ought to stand saltpetre better than
folks who come into the world without any charge
to the State — without blank charge.
Your friend of the beard is, I think, quite right.
When God made Adam he did not present him with a
razor, but a wife. 'Tis the damned old clothes men
who have brought discredit upon a noble appendage
of man. Thank God we've revenge for this. They'll
make some of 'em members of Parliament.
I purpose to break in upon you some early Sunday,
to kiss the hands of your wife, and to tell you de-
lightful stories of the deaths of kings. How nobly
Mazzini is behaving ! And what a cold, calico cur
is John Bull, as — I fear — too truly rendered by The
Times. The French are in a nice mess. Heaven in
its infinite mercy confound them !
" Truly yours,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Work on the delayed comedy of the Catspaw
was apparently returned to and may be referred
to in the following whimsical note to Miss
Sabilla Novello, who had evidently sent Jerrold
the gift of a knitted purse :
DOUGLAS JERROLD 505
" Putney Oreen,
" June 9.
" Dear Miss Novello, — I thank you very sincerely
for your present, though I cannot but fear its fatal
effect upon my limited fortunes, for it is so very
handsome that whenever I produce it I feel that I
have thousands a year, and, as in duty bound, am
inclined to pay accordingly. I shall go about, to the
astonishment of all omnihii men, insisting upon paying
sovereigns for sixpences. Happily, however, this
amiable insanity will cure itself (or I may always
bear my wife with me as a keeper).
About this comed}^ I am writing it under the
most significant warnings. As the Eastern King —
name unknown, to me at least — kept a crier to warn
him that he was but a mortal and must die, and so
to behave himself as decently as it is possible for any
poor King to do, so do I keep a flock of eloquent geese
that continually, within earshot, cackle of the British
public. Hence, I trust to defeat the birds of the
Hay market by the birds of Putney.
" But in this comedy I do contemplate such a
heroine, as a set-off to the many sins imputed to me
as committed against woman, whom I have always
considered to be an admirable idea imperfectly
worked out. Poor soul ! she can't help that. Well,
this heroine shall be woven of moonbeams — a perfect
angel, with one wing cut to keep her among us. She
shall be all devotion. She shall hand over her lover
(never mind his heart, poor wretch !) to her grand-
mother, who she suspects is very fond of him, and
then, disguising herself as a youth, she shall enter
the British navy, and return in six years, say, with
epaulets on her shoulders, and her name in the Navy
List, rated Post-Captain. You will perceive that I
have Madame Celeste in my eye — am measuring her
506 DOUGLAS JERROLD
for the uniform. And young ladies will sit in the
boxes, and with tearful eyes, and noses like rose-buds,
say, ' What magnanimity ! ' and when this great
work is done — this monument of the very best gilt
gingerbread to woman set up on the Haymarket
stage — you shall, if you will, go and see it, and make
one to cry for the ' Author,' rewarding him with a
crown of tin-foil, and a shower of sugar-plums.
" In lively hope of that ecstatic moment, I remain^
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Towards the end of June, with Charles
Knight — ^that energetic pioneer in providing
cheap literature for the people — as companion,
Douglas Jerrold set off for a short holiday in
Ireland — ^the occasion being the first railway
excursion from London to Killarney, and of
this holiday we have fuller particulars in that
Knight wrote of it at some length when pre-
paring his pleasant Passages of a Working Life.
They stayed at Conway en route :
" Had I gone there alone I might have surrendered
myself to the romance of the scene ; but Jerrold
was a friend whose sympathy heightened every charm
of the picturesque, and whose cultured mind could
fully appreciate the associations with which history
has invested Conway. . . . With him there was no
ennui on the longest railway journey."
In Dublin the friends stayed for a day or
two, and on leaving there for the south they
found they were to have the congenial com-
panionship of a notable Irish poet,ifor ;
DOUGLAS JERROLD 507
"when we set out on our Killarney expedition, at
six o'clock on a brilliant morning, to our surprise and
pleasure, Mr. Samuel Ferguson ^ appeared, with his
wiie, on the platform, with the purpose of accompany-
ing us. How much the company of a man of letters,
well versed in the history and legends of his country,
and of a most intelligent and highly cultivated lady,
could add to our week's enjoyment, it is scarcely
necessary to dwell upon. The journey from Dublin
to Killarney was at that time accomplished in about
thirteen hours. The railway went only to Mallow,
a distance of a hundred and forty-five miles. Its
steady progress of twenty miles an hour enabled the
traveller to see the country much more advantageously
than the forty miles an hour of an English express
train. There was little of the picturesque about the
line, and very few manifestations of prosperous
industry. The small towns were mostly dilapidated,
and all somnolent. The inevitable course of agri-
cultural improvement had not yet awakened them.
When we reached Mallow, the portentous beggary
that we encountered at the railway station was an
unusual sight which might well make an Englishman
sad. Yet, if education were to do anything for the
slow but sure removal of social miseries, there was
evidence that something was going forward that
might one day produce good fruits. Amongst the
ragged boys that had just rushed out of one of the
schools established under the National system there
was a manifestation of quickness that was very
different from the incurious eyes and shy demeanour
of English boys let loose from a village school.
Half-a-dozen of them crowded round Jerrold and
myself.
^ Afterwards Sir Samuel Ferguson (1810-86).
508 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" ' Please, sir, to hear me say my lesson,' says
one.
" ' Please, sir, examine me in history,' says
another.
" Jerrold laughed heartily, and took the historical
student's book. He opened it at random, and
asked —
" ' Who was the first emperor of Rome ? '
" ' Augustus.'
Who was Julius Caesar ? '
His uncle.'
When was Julius Caesar assassinated ? '
B.C. 44.'
" The boy had a sixpence, and we soon had about
us another crowd of candidates for examination.
The competitive system was in full vigour. ' I can
say it as well as he, sir.' ' So can I.' . . . The forty
miles which we had to travel by car were not very
interesting, and there was little consolation in the
refreshment provided at Millstreet, the only stay
between Mallow and Killarney. Distant mountains
appeared as if we should never reach them through
some miles of dreary bog. At length at a turn of
the road, we are in the long street of Killarney, and
are welcomed by such a clamour of mendicancy that
the change to a real rickety Irish car, shaking one to
pieces, is welcomed as a blessing. The driver whips,
and the horse gallops, and, scarcely able to hold on,
we ask in vain for a quieter and a safer transit to the
Victoria Hotel.
" ' Niver fear,' says the driver.
" ' But, I tell you, I do fear,' says Jerrold. All
remonstrance was useless, but we found comfort in a
capital dinner and excellent beds. . . . We climbed
the hills, we explored the lakes. ' The boys,' as we
soon learned to call our boatmen, were for awhile
DOUGLAS JERROLD 509
silent, but we soon began to hear their stories of the
O'Donoghues, whose legends are associated with
every island of these lakes. Jerrold, too, brought
out the native humour of one of them, who displayed
no mean skill in a passage-at-arms with the great wit
of our clubs. A friend who visited Killarney some
ten years after us, wrote to me that Jerrold and
Jerrold's jokes were still remembered and retailed by
these good-tempered fellows ... I shall never visit
these charming scenes again ; perhaps if I had the
power, I should think too much of him who made
them doubly delightful."
The travellers quitted Killarney with the
intention of visiting Glengariff and returning
to Dublin by Cork, but mist and rain set in
and they saw no more of the picturesque.
" When we reached Macroom I was really ill.
The cholera was prevalent in the district through
which we had passed, and my companions had their
fears for me. The circumstance is associated in my
remembrance with the tender friendship of Jerrold,
who sat by my bed in a wretched inn, watching over
me during a dreary night."
Cholera was not to claim Knight for one of
its victims, and the travellers were at home
again by the middle of July, their pleasant
holiday somewhat marred at its close by this
illness. Jerrold's proposed epitaph for his
friend, " Good Knight," was not to be needed
for a quarter of a century yet, and long after
the younger of the two had passed away.
The next letter is to Forster, and shows
510 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Jerrold interested in the sending of some one
to Australia — possibly young Blanchard men-
tioned earlier — but who Hawes was does not
appear, probably an official in the Colonial
Office. The visit to Maidenhead was, of course,
to paper mills.
" Thursday [August 3, 1849].
" My dear Forster, — Evans tells me that we are
to go to Maidenhead on Tuesday to see the manu-
facture of what some of us so ill use — of course I
mean myself. I look forward to a right jocund day.
Thank you in the matter of Hawes. I have to look
out for a ship, and, if possible, to obtain the best of
berths at the lowest of prices. Do you know anybody
who knows anybody at Adelaide or thereabouts, in
or out of the Bush — letters at the Antipodes being of
special value to a young man. Do the Chapmans
send ships to Adelaide ? The Marryats — great ship-
owners— are connections of Sir Henry Wood, Sir H.
having made Miss M. Lady W. Dickens, I believe,
has interest with the Chapmans.
" Yours ever,
" D. Jerrold.
*' If you have seen it, and like it, will you quote
my letter from the Daily News of Tuesday in the
Examiner? "
Next comes a pleasant letter to Knight
referring to rumours that Jerrold was in Paris,
and to the horrors of the cholera visitation :
" Putney, August 11 [1849].
" My dear Knight, — A friend of darkness or a
spirit of light has, I incline to believe, assumed my
form (which of the two do you think it would best
DOUGLAS JERROLD 511
fit ?) and is going up and down, seeking what dinner
it may devour. We are dwelling in the green wild-
ness of Putney, and receive assurance that 1 am in
Paris. If really there in any shape, I hope I am
behaving myself. I have been only once to town
since I saw you. All London is in my present
thoughts a reeking graveyard ; pray you, avoid it.
Sit in your wicker-chair, get your wife and daughter
to cover your thistle-down with vine-leaves, and
quaff imaginary quarts of nut-brown — since the real,
however particular, is denied you.
" Nothing stirring in London but the cholera and
murder. It will be proved that certain proprietors
of Sunday newspapers hired the respited Mannings
to murder Fergus O'Connor. The Observer intends
to present the deceased man and wife, when duly
hanged, with two silver coffin-plates. They are now
to be seen at the office (with blanks for date of demise)
on purchase of a paper. But don't let even this bring
you to town.
" Do you stay another week ? If so, at the risk
of crowding you (I have but a little body, as Queen
Mary said of her neck), I will come to-morrow week,
if I can return on the Sunday. I can sleep anywhere
— ^upon a boot -jack or a knife-board.
" Mind you insist upon your wife to insist upon
your remaining from St. Bride's. Go to the top of
Box Hill, and ' with nostril well -upturned, scent the
murky air ' of London — and keep away from it.
" Remember me to Mrs. Knight and daughter,
single and double. Mr. Kerr (is there one r too
many here ? if so, I'll take it back) talked some
eloquent Gaelic about some whiskey. . . ."
A note to Forster of a fortnight later shows
that Jerrold had been to Chatsworth and had
512 DOUGLAS JERROLD
— a most unusual role for him — been there as a
sportsman.
" August 17 [1849], Putney.
" My dear Forster, — At the request of the author,
I forward you his first book. I have a shrewd guess
that 'tis not already unknown to you. As yet I
have not read a line of it : but I know the author to
be a young man of great industry and eke of probity
— as things go no bad qualities. A good word, if
you can bestow it, will be of great service to him,
I came from Chatsworth this morning; and it may
surprise you (it does me) to know that I have com-
mitted bloodshed on the moors !
" The grouse will long remember,
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
It was on this visit to Chatsworth that he
wrote his happy impromptu on Joseph Paxton's
daughter standing on one of the great leaves of
the Victoria Regia— -which was then flowering
for the first time in England :
" On unbent leaf, in fairy guise,
Reflected in the water,
Beloved, admired, by hearts and eyes.
Stands Annie, Paxton's daughter.
Accept a wish, my little maid.
Begotten of the minute.
That scene so fair may never fade,
You still the fairy in it ;
That all your life, nor care nor grief
May load the winged hours
With weight to bend a lily's leaf —
And all around be flowers."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 513
To an unidentified correspondent he wrote
three days later, acknowledging a gift. It
may be hoped that the wearer's gloves did not
split as readily as the writer's infinitive.
" My dear Sir, — Thanks for the gloves. They
are nice notes of hand which I hope to duly honour.
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold.
" I hope you are recovered from country exercise;
and are again your usual size."
Another note to Forster points more de-
finitely to the Catspaw as being now in hand
for completion :
" August 22 [1849].
" My dear Forster, — I had thought to see you
yesterday or should have written ere this. I cannot
go. ' Woe's me that I am constrained in the tents
of Kedar ! ' My last holiday was too great a cut
into my time, and another — much as I yearn towards
the Isle of Wight — will unsettle me for too long from
my present work for Webster to whom I am pledged
to perfect by a certain time. And there is more than
money in the matter now. Again, my wife is unwell,
and folks do die suddenly in these times even in
Putney. Give my regards which are deep as my
regrets .
" Yours truly ever,
" Douglas Jerrold.
" I wonder if we meet to-night at Conduit Street ? "
" There is more than money in the matter
now " seems to suggest that the writer was
feeling the failure of his magazine and news-
VOL. II. L
514 DOUGLAS JERROLD
paper, and realized that he had to show that
it was not in any way because his hand had
lost its cunning. Whatever the time to which
the dramatist was pledged, it was not until the
following spring that his play was produced.
Some letters to Mary Cowden Clarke of this
autumn deal with an American admirer who
wished for a scrap of that lady's writing, and
who, as the sequel shows, sent two gold pens in
gratitude for the gift.
" West Lodge. Putney, October 10, 1849.
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — I know a man who
knows a man (in America) who says ' I would give
two ounces of Californian gold for two lines written
by Mrs. Cowden Clarke ! ' Will you write me two
lines for the wise enthusiast ? And, if I get the gold,
that will doubtless be paid with the Pennsylvanian
Bonds, I will struggle with the angel Conscience
that you may have it — that is, if the angel get the
best of it. But against angels there are heavy
odds.
" I hope you left father and mother well, happy
and complacent, in the hope of a century at least.
I am glad you stopped at Nice, and did not snuff the
shambles of Rome. Mazzini, I hear, will be with us
in a fortnight. European liberty is, I fear, manacled
and gagged for many years. Nevertheless, in
England, let us rejoice that beef is under a shilling
a pound, and that next Christmas ginger will be hot
i' the mouth.
" Remember me to Clarke. I intend to go one of
these nights and sit beneath him.
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 515
The closing reference is no doubt to Cowden
Clarke's lectures on literary subjects. As to
the next brief note, Mrs. Clarke explains that
the American correspondent wished for the
scrap of handwriting to be posted without an
envelope so that the sheet of paper might bear
a postmark as evidence of genuineness.
" Putney.
" October 19, 1849.
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — Will you comply with
the wish of my correspondent ? The Yankees, it
appears, are suspicious folks. I thought them
Arcadians.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
Two days later it was a very different theme
that moved Jerrold to write.
" Putney,
" October 21, 1849.
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — The wisdom of the law
is about to preach from the scaffold on the sacredness
of life ; and to illustrate its sanctity, will straightway
strangle a woman as soon as she have strength renewed
from childbirth. I would fain believe, despite the
threat of Sir G G to hang this wretched
creature as soon as restorations shall have had their
benign effect, that the Government only need pressure
from without to commute the sentence. A petition — a
woman's petition — is in course of signature. You
are, I believe, not a reader of that mixture of good
and evil, a newspaper; hence, may be unaware of
the fact. I need not ask you, Will you sign it ? The
document lies at Gilpins' — a noble fellow — the book-
seller, Bishopsgate. Should her Majesty run down
516 DOUGLAS JERROLD
the list of names, I think her bettered taste in Shake-
speare would dwell complacently on the name of
Mary Cowden Clarke.
" I don't know when they pay dividends at the
Bank, but if this be the time, you can in the same
journey fill your pocket, and lighten your conscience.
Regards to Clarke.
" Yours ever truly,
" D. Jerrold."
The subject of punishment by death was
one that always moved Douglas Jerrold.
He would have abolished capital punishment
altogether, and deprecated all " reforms " that
tended, as he rightly saw, to the postponement
of that abolition. His earliest publication
had been upon this gruesome theme, and now
he was to find himself opposed to his friend
Dickens on the subject, as the following letters
— ^unfortunately incomplete — sufficiently show.
" Devonshire Terrace,
" November 17, 1849.
"... In a letter I have received from G. this
morning he quotes a recent letter from you, in which
you deprecate the ' mystery ' of private hanging.
" Will you consider what punishment there is
except death to which ' mystery ' does not attach ?
Will you consider whether all the improvements in
prisons and punishments that have been made within
the last twenty years have, or have not, been all
productive of ' mystery ' ? I can remember very
well when the silent system was objected to as
mysterious and opposed to the genius of English
society. Yet there is no question that it has been
a great benefit. The prison vans are mysterious
DOUGLAS JERROLD 517
vehicles ; but surely they are better than the old
system of marching prisoners through the streets
chained to a long chain, like the galley slaves in Don
Quixote. Is there no mystery about transportation,
and our manner of sending men away to Norfolk
Island, or elsewhere ? None in abandoning the use
of a man's name, and knowing him only by a number ?
Is not the whole improved and altered system from
the beginning to end, a mystery ? I wish I could
induce you to feel justified in leaving that work to
the platform people, on the strength of your know-
ledge of what crime was, and of what its punishments
were, in the days when there was no mystery in these
things, and all was as open as Bridewell when Ned
Ward went to see the women whipped."
Sad to find his friend on the side of those
who, seeking a compromise, postponed a reform
indefinitely, Douglas Jerrold replied as follows-
Had his views been more firmly upheld it may
well be believed that capital punishment would
before this have gone the way of the thumb-
screw and the rack.
" Putney,
" November 20, 1849.
" My dear Dickens, — ... It seems to me that
what you argue with reference to the treatment of
the convict criminal hardly applies to the proposed
privacy of hanging him. The ' mystery ' which, in
our better discipline, surrounds the living, is eventually
for his benefit. If his name merge in a number, it is
that he may have a chance of obtaining back the
name cleansed somewhat.
" If it be proved — and can there be a doubt of
such proof ?— that public execution fails to have a
518 DOUGLAS JERROLD
salutary influence on society, then the last argument
for the punishment of death is, in my opinion, utterly
destroyed. Private hanging, with the mob, would
become an abstract idea.
■' But what I sincerely lament in your letter of
yesterday is that, in its advocacy of private execu-
tions, it implies their continued necessity. The sturdy
anti -abolitionist may count upon it as upon his side.
I am grieved that the weight of your name, and the
influence of your reputation, should be claimed by
such a party.
" Grant private hanging, and you perpetuate the
punishment ; and the mischief wrested from your
letter is this : it may induce some — not many, I
hope — willing, even in despair, to give up the punish-
ment of death, now to contend for its continuance
when inflicted in secrecy. ... As to the folly and
wickedness of the infliction of death as a punishment,
possibly I may consider them from a too tran-
scendental point. I believe, notwithstanding, that
society will rise to it. In the meantime my Tom
Thumb voice must be raised against any compromise
that, in the sincerity of my opinion, shall tend to
continue the hangman amongst us, whether in the
Old Bailey street, or in the prison press-yard.
" Sorry am I, my dear Dickens, to differ from any
opinion of yours — most sorry upon an opinion so
grave ; but both of us are only the instruments of our
convictions."
One who knew Jerrold personally pointed
out that those who opposed his views on this
subject " missed a somewhat subtle but yet
very profound train of thought that pervades
his reasonings on the matter, and distinguishes
DOUGLAS JERROLD 519
them from the ordinary argumentations of our
platform orators. It is not so much on account
of the supposed barbarity of the practice of
capital punishments or on account of its alleged
inefficacy to keep down crime that Mr.
Jerrold would desire to see its abolition; it is
because the practice appears to him to be an
outrage on the sanctity of that act of death
which all living must inevitably perform at
some time or other. That an event to which
equally the babe in the cradle and the saint
of a neighbourhood are liable, and which it is
the aim of our religion to represent as a holy
and beautiful thing, should be seized upon for
a vile social purpose; and that society, be-
thinking itself of the most horrible thing it
could do to a man for his crimes, should resolve
simply to send him out of the world some
years before his time — seems to him, either,
on the one hand, a treachery of all to the
faith that is professed, or, on the other, a
base pandering by the higher to the super-
stition of meaner natures."
It may be that it was this difference in a
matter of opinion that led to the temporary
coolness of which Dickens wrote shortly after
his friend's death : " There had been an
estrangement between us — not on any personal
subject, and not involving an angry word — and
a good many months had passed without my
once seeing him in the street, when it fell out
that we dined, each with his own separate
party, in the strangers' room of a club. Our
520 DOUGLAS JERROLD
chairs were almost back to back, and I took
mine after he was seated at dinner. I said
not a word (I am sorry to remember) and did
not look that way. Before we had sat so
long, he openly wheeled his chair round,
stretched out both his hands in the most
engaging manner, and said aloud, with a bright
and loving face, which I can see as I write to
you : ' For God's sake let us be friends again !
Life's not long enough for this ! ' " If the
incident is a pleasant revelation of Jerrold's
character, the recording of it reflects equal
honour on Dickens.
A smaller and a local grievance moved the
tenant of West Lodge to protest against things
done in the name of the lord of the manor to
the common, the dwellers about which were
still entitled to common rights. He wrote as
follows this year to Earl Spencer, who was
Lord of the Manor :
" My Lord, — I cannot believe that you are aware
of the extent to which Putney Lower Common (upon
which it is my misfortune to be a resident) is denuded
of its turf. I have now no cattle of any order to be
defrauded of common right. But there are many
poor whose cows and geese are sorely nipped of what
has been deemed their privilege of grass — none of the
most luxurious at the best — by the system of spolia-
tion carried on in your lordship's manor, and under
your declared authority. At this moment a long
stretch of common lies before my window, so much
swamp. The turf has been coined into a few shillings,
to the suffering, very patiently borne, of the cows
DOUGLAS JERROLD 521
aforesaid : and the philosophical endurance of the
geese alone resisted. But I am sure your lordship
has only to be made acquainted with wrongs of the
useful and the innocent — wrongs inflicted under
the avowed sanction of abused nobility — to stay the
injustice.
" I have the honour to remain, etc.,
" Douglas Jerrold."
In closing the record of the 'forties a few
words may appropriately be devoted to the
subject of Douglas Jerrold's clubs, with especial
reference to the Museum Club, which was
started in 1847. The weekly dinner of this
club claimed Jerrold's regular attendance, as
those of the Mulberry Club had earlier and
those of Our Club did later. He was, indeed,
a thoroughly clubbable man, and seems
always to have enjoyed the free and easy
comradeship of his fellow penmen over the
dinner table; and though such comradeship
was punctuated with the saying of sharp
things, it may well be believed from the
memories of those who took part in the
gatherings that the sharp things said were
such as tickled rather than wounded. Many
of them were so sharp that in print they may
appear cruel, but generally the " atmosphere "
in which they were uttered, the hearty laugh
with which they were accompanied, showed
them free of any intent to wound. The
witticism came to the tongue as quickly as it
came to the brain and had to be uttered.
And rarely was it taken amiss by those who
522 DOUGLAS JERROLD
knew Douglas Jerrold. Those who only knew
of him, perhaps naturally, as the late William
P. Frith, R.A., frankly declared, " dreaded his
tongue." The famous artist had apparently
no very keen sense of humour, for, after
quoting one or two Jerrold stories in his
reminiscences, he added :
" I was mistaken, no doubt, in estimating his
character by the seeming brutality of some of the
sarcasms he uttered, for those who knew him inti-
mately all agreed in declaring Jerrold to be one of
the kindest-hearted men living. Compton the actor
agreed in this, but told me of an instance of Jerrold's
ready wit, which, to the ordinary mind, scarcely
bears out the amiable theory. Jerrold was roving
about the West End in search of a house that he had
been commissioned to hire for the season for a country
friend. Compton met and accompanied him into a
house, and in one of the rooms was a large mirror
that reflected the visitor from top to toe. ' There,'
said Compton, pointing to his own figure, ' that's
what I call a picture.' ' Yes,' said Jerrold, ' it only
wants hanging ! ' "
It may well be wondered whether Frith, if
he could have thought of the retort, could
have also refrained from uttering it ! It may
also be wondered whether he thought that the
recognition of the play on words necessarily
implied that Jerrold considered Compton a
fit subject for the hangman. Those incapable
of wit themselves are least appreciative of the
wit that may be in other men.
Fortunately the men who gathered into the
DOUGLAS JERROLD 523
small social clubs which Jerrold formed or in
which he joined were mostly of a happier kind.
As one of them said : " I have seen the retort,
quick and blinding as lightning, flash from the
lips of Jerrold, whilst he himself led the chorus
of mirth at his own success, and the victim
would laugh the loudest and the longest."
To a visitor to one of these clubs we owe a
personal description of Jerrold about this
period :
*' In personal appearance Douglas Jerrold was
singularly picturesque. The leonine head, with its
finely-chiselled features, appeared to overweight the
slender body by which it was supported. He spoke,
and the large blue eyes glistened beneath the shaggy
eyebrows, the thin lips parted in a radiant smile, the
long mane-like hair was pushed back off the splendid
forehead, the limbs and body were restless with
nervous excitement, and the genius of a giant seemed
to animate the outlines of a dwarf. The figure was
diminutive, but the fire of intellect, asserting its
indomitable sway, inspired every feature, and atoned
for all physical deficiency. His wit was inexhaustible,
and flowed even more abundantly in conversation
than from the pen. Just as the sharp contact of
the steel with flint will cause a flash, so did the wit
of Douglas Jerrold sparkle all the more luminously
when opposed in brisk argument to the duller faculties
of others. ... To be at his best he required a good
audience. I have seen Albert Smith, writing on his
shirtcuff, take note of a repartee of Douglas Jerrold,
and while enjoying the joke, ask in his cracked voice,
' May I use that ? ' " ^
1 Willert Beale, The Light of Other Bays,
524 DOUGLAS JERROLD
The Museum Club was started to provide a
modest meeting-place where literary men could
dine and talk in company and natural ease,
and Douglas Jerrold came to be regarded as
the principal member. When its character
changed other clubs successively developed
from it — The Forty Thieves, the Hooks and
Eyes, and later Our Club, which continued to
flourish for over fifty years. Many of Jerrold's
often-quoted jests were first spoken in the
quickening atmosphere of these clubs, but there
was no Boswell going about treasuring up the
things said for the delight of later readers.
When, by the way, Forster was described by
some one as playing the part of Boswell to
Charles Dickens, Jerrold commented on hearing
it, " He doesn't do the Boz well." Apart
from scattered witticisms associated with one
or other of these clubs few notes of the gather-
ings have been preserved, beyond the following
" fragment of table talk " jotted down by
an anonymous member — possibly Hepworth
Dixon.
" A charming night at the Museum Club — every-
body there.
" C. said he was writing about Shakespeare.
" Now Jerrold ranks Shakespeare with the angels,
if not above them ; and G., paraphrasing Pope's lines
on Bacon, says ' Shakespeare has written the best
and the worst stuff that was ever penned ; ' where-
upon F. says, ' But then comes the question, what
did Shakespeare write ? Not all that is printed under
his name ? '
DOUGLAS JERROLD 525
" G. ' Ah ! I don't refer to the doubtful plays ; I take
the best : Hamlet, Othello '
" J err old. ' Well, then, choose your example.'
" (r. ' There, this is in bad taste — where Othello is
about to murder Desdemona. He bends over her,
and says she is a rose, and he'll smell her on the
tree. . . . The confusion of image is only surpassed
by the want of taste.'
" Jerrold. ' My God ! You don't call it bad taste to
compare a woman's beauty to a rose ? '
" G. ' Ha ! he says she is a rose — and he'll smell her —
and on the tree. It is the licence of wanton and false
imagery common to the early Italian poets. . . .'
" Wordsworth was mentioned. Jerrold spoke of
him in the warmest terms ; indeed, he ranks the man
of Rydal Mount next to Shakespeare and Milton.
' No writer,' he said, ' has done me more good, except-
ing always Shakespeare. When I was a lad I adored
Byron — every lad does. Of course I laughed at
Wordsworth and the Lakers, and, of course, without
knowing them. But one day I heard a line quoted —
" * She was known to every star in heaven,
And every wind that blew.'
These lines sent me to Wordsworth, and, I assure
you, it was like a new sense. For years I read him
eagerly, and found consolation — the true test of
genius — in his verse. In all my troubles his words
have been the best medicine to my mind.'
" G. ' Some of his things are good ; but he will only
live in extracts.'
" ff . 'I am of your opinion. I have not read him
through; I cannot. But his Tintern Abbey, his
Yarrow Revisited, and some of his short poems, are
above praise. My objection to him, as to Southey, is
526 DOUGLAS JERROLD
political. I detest his principles, and therefore have
to strive to like his poetry.'
" Jerrold. ' Never mind his principles. Wordsworth,
the man, may have been a snob or a scoundrel.
Dear Hood once asked me to meet him, and I would
not. I hated the man ; but then the poet had given
me grand ideas, and I am grateful. Separate the
writer from the writing.'
" H. 'I cannot do that. I cannot think of the artist
and the art — the creator and the creations — as things
of no relation. In an early number of the Spectator,
Addison described his staff — and he was right.
People do like to know if their teachers are black or
white. The reader likes to give and take : you ask
his confidence, and he naturally inquires into your
character.'
" Jerrold. ' You are quite wrong. A truth is a truth
— a fine thought is a fine thought. What matters it
who is the mouthpiece ? When Coleridge says —
" ' And winter slumbering in the open air
Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring — '
what do I care for his being a sot and a tyrant ? '
*' D. 'I do care. To me a gospel delivered by a
demon is no gospel : the orator is a part of the
oration. Surely the founts of true inspiration must
be true : fresh water cannot run from foul springs.
I refuse to accept an oracle from a charlatan.'
" Jerrold. ' I agree it would be better for the poet to
be a good man, but his poem would be the same.
The inductive method is not false because Bacon
took bribes and fawned on a tyrant. The theory of
gravitation would be true if it had been discovered
by Greenacre. Siddons was a great actress, irre-
spectively of her being a good mother and a faithful
wife. The world has no concern with an artist's
private character. Are the cartoons less divine,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 527
because Raphael lived with a mistress ? Art is art,
and truth is truth, whatever may have been their
agents.'
" A jest ended the talk. Somebody mentioned the
Jews in connection with Rachel, and Jerrold ex-
claimed, as some one once said in the House, ' We
owe much to the Jews.' "
It is said to have been at the Museum Club
that some members were suggesting that
Covent Garden was no longer a suitable centre
— had not the headquarters better be moved
further West : " No, no, gentlemen, not near
Pall Mall — we might catch coronets."
On another occasion there had been a lively
discussion, and the temperature was rising
when a would-be peacemaker broke in with,
" Gentlemen, all I want is common sense "
" Exactly," interrupted Jerrold, " that is pre-
cisely what you do want." And the disputation
ended in laughter.
In a talk on the fastidiousness of the time,
one member asserted that people " would soon
say that marriage was improper." '' No,"
said Jerrold emphatically, " they'll always
consider marriage good breeding."
A fellow member confided in Jerrold that
his wife had been about to enter a convent
when she met him and married instead.
" Ah," said Jerrold when the story was finished,
" she evidently thought you better than nun."
CHAPTER XVI
A GOLD PEN — THE " CATSPAW " — TRIP TO LAKE
DISTRICT — HARRIET MARTINEAU — LEIGH
hunt's SNEER — EASTBOURNE
1850
A PASSAGE from an undated letter from
Joseph Mazzini, the famous Itahan patriot
and man of letters, to Douglas Jerrold stresses
the fact that Jerrold's pen was ever at the
service of those champions of freedom on the
Continent who made the 'forties of the nine-
teenth century an important period in the
history of progress, and also the way in which
that service was appreciated. " I know,"
wrote Mazzini, " that you would not fail me
if everybody did. . . . But I know more; and
it is that, whenever you do sympathize, you
are ready to act, to embody your feelings
in good, visible, tangible symbol; and this
is not the general rule." Later, as we
shall see, Jerrold's sympathies were engaged in
securing some tangible symbol of British
appreciation of another patriot who had been
active against Austrian tyranny. It was no
doubt owing to the activity of his pen in support
of such exponents of liberal views that Douglas
Jerrold was unable to visit Italy when the
528
DOUGLAS JERROLD 529
opportunity for his doing so offered. Italy-
was then under Austrian domination, and on
applying for a passport to the Austrian repre-
sentative in London he was met with a blunt
refusal — " We have orders not to admit Mr.
Douglas Jerrold to Austrian territory." '' That
shows your weakness, not my strength," came
the instant retort.
The earliest letters of the year 1850 revert
to a subject touched upon in those to Mrs.
Cowden Clarke that have been already given.
The American enthusiast had presumably duly
received his scrap of writing so postmarked as
to make him sure that he had not been hoaxed.
" West Lodge, Putney Common,
" February 22, 1850.
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — I will share anything
with you, and can only wish — at least for myself —
that the matter to be shared came not in so pleasant
a shape as that dirt in yellow gold. I have heard
naught of the American, and would rather that his
gift came brightened through you than from his own
hand. The savage, with glimpses of civilization, is
male.
Do you read the Morning Chronicle ? Do you
devour those marvellous revelations of the inferno
of misery, of wretchedness, that is smouldering under
our feet ? We live in a mockery of Christianity that,
with the thought of its hypocrisy, makes me sick.
We know nothing of this terrible life that is about
us — us, in our smug respectability. To read of the
sufferings of one class, and of the avarice, the tyranny,
the pocket cannibalism of the other, makes one
almost wonder that the world should go on, that the
VOL. II. M
530 DOUGLAS JERROLD
misery and wretchedness of the earth are not, by an
Almighty fiat, ended. And when we see the spires
of pleasant churches pointing to Heaven, anJ are
told — paying thousands to Bishops for the glad
intelligence — that we are Christians ! the cant of
this country is enough to poison the atmosphere.
I send you the Chronicle of yesterday. You will
therein read what I think you will agree to be one of
the most beautiful records of the nobility of the
poor; of those of whom our jaunty legislators know
nothing ; of the things made in the statesman's mind
to be taxed — not venerated. I am very proud to
say that these papers of Labour and the Poor were
projected by Henry Mayhew,^ who married my girl.
For comprehensiveness of purpose and minuteness of
detail they have never been approached. He will
cut his name deep. From these things I have still
great hopes. A revival movement is at hand, and —
you will see what you'll see. Remember me with
best thoughts to Clarke, and believe me yours sin-
cerely,
" Douglas Jerrold."
Three days later and the pen duly arrived
and was at once set to work to write an acknow-
ledgment :
" Putney,
" February 25, 1850.
" My dear Mrs. Clarke, — Herewith I send you
my ' first copy,' done in, I presume, American gold.
Considering what American booksellers extract from
English brains, even the smallest piece of the precious
metal is, to literary eyes, refreshing. I doubt, how-
1 These were the articles which Henry Mayhew later
republished as his remarkable volumes on London Labour
and the London Poor.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 531
ever, whether these gold pens really work; they are
pretty holiday things, but to earn daily bread with,
I have already my misgivings that I must go back
to iron. To be sure I once had a gold pen that seemed
to write of itself, but this was stolen by a Cinderella,
who, of eourse, could not write even with that gold
pen. Perhaps, however, the policeman could.
" That the Chronicle did not come was my blunder.
I hope it will reach you with this, and with it my best
wishes and affectionate regards to you and flesh and
bone of you, truly ever,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The next note seems to glance in its reference
to the mulberry and Shakespeare's birthday
at some ritual observed in the old days of the
Mulberry Club :
" April 24 [1850], Putney.
" My dear Forster, — Thank you for your letter,
I had marked Saturday next with a white stone (which
by the way, is not Frank). I hope you ate your
mulberry yesterday with reverential pleasure.
" Ever truly yours,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The delayed comedy of the Catspaw was at
length in active rehearsal at the Haymarket
Theatre, and on May 9 it was produced and
met with immediate success. It was a play
of the moment, the scene being laid in the very
year of its representation, and its brilliant
dialogue equalled that of any of the earlier
pieces from the same " iron pen." The cast
of the Catspaw included Benjamin Webster,
Wallack, Buckstone, and Robert and Mrs.
532 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Keeley. The story of the piece is perhaps a
trifle thin, and in that respect the comedy is
less notable than the Tiine Works Wonders
of five years before. A nobleman has died
and the man who hoped to inherit, Snowball,
insists on throwing the matter into Chancery,
but he insists only in the way of friendliness,
as he wishes if the case is likely to go against
him to leave it possible to marry the widow
Peachdown, to whom the wealth has been
left. He it is who is made " catspaw " by
several people, notably by Petgoose, a quack
medical attendant, and the resourceful widow.
There are under-currents of romance in the
story of his ward Cassandra and her lover
Audley, and of the maid Rosemary and her
soldier-suitor Appleface, but it is in the inter-
play of the dialogue that the strength of the
piece lies. Every scene sparkles with talk for
— it has been counted a weakness on the part
of the dramatist — all of the characters betray
something of the quickness of wit of their
creator :
" Audley. Throw the matter into Chancery, and in
time you may set the will aside.
Snowball. But how if before time sets me aside ?
Audley. That's it. Whereas marriage stops all
anxiety, for you Icnow the worst at once.
Snowball. Chancery ! Doctor, I should die in no
time.
Petgoose. Chancery ! Gasp and die, like a gudgeon
on a hook.
Snowball. And how — how about marriage ?
DOUGLAS JERROLD 533
Petgoose. Why, in the matter of marriage, while
there's hfe there's hope.
Snowball. True. In all the wedding cake hope is
the sweetest of the plums. And who is it I'm to
marry ?
Audley. Why, the widow — Mrs. Peaehdown, of
course.
Snowball. Marry her ! I'd rather be gnawed to
death by law, and buried in a winding-sheet of parch-
ment.
Audley. If you so decide, sir, I've no doubt our house
can accommodate you. Still, if at a blow you made
the defendant your wife—
Snowball. Well ?
Audley. 'Twould save time and money.
Snowball. And time makes life, and money gilds
it ! No — no ! I'd rather fling myself upon the
law.
Audley. Very good. Then we at once throw Mrs.
Peaehdown into Chancery ?
Snowball. Stop. Throw her tenderly — amicably.
Because — ha ! ha ! — I am so shrewd — if Chancery is
going against us, we can but relent and marry the
poor thing at last. But that's like me. So deep;
eh, eh. Doctor ?
Petgoose. Don't ask me. If you will tamper with
your constitution you must bear the penalty.
Audley. Then Mrs. Peaehdown must understand
that the suit is quite a friendly one ?
Snowball. Only animated by the warmest friend-
ship.
Audley. No vindictive feeling.
Snowball. No more than if the suit before us was a
game of chess.
Audley. With this advantage. When you find you're
losing, you can make it all right by playing a bishop.
534 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Upon my life, sir, you are wondrous shrewd. A client
Mr. Chumpem must be proud of.
Snowball. Shrewd ! I believe so. At school
they called me the fox — the little fox. Would you
think it ?
Audley. I should not . (Aside) I should rather think
you the other party.
Snowball. But not a word to Mrs. Peachdown.
With her chivalrous notions, her love of the middle
ages, she might arm her resentment in a suit of plate
armour, and dare me herself to single combat. So
the widow must be lulled.
Audley. Sir, she shall be the Sleeping Beauty of
the Court of Chancery."
The widow's weakness for the middle ages,
for the good old times of chivalry and so
forth, is more than once made the theme of
pleasant satire by her wooer Captain Burgonet
and others :
*' Burgonet. You see she's all for the middle ages.
Audley. And what she calls the good, extinct old
virtues.
Burgonet. Some of 'em like extinct volcanoes, with
a strong memory of fire and brimstone. Why, with
her, the world as it is, is a second-hand world — a world
all the worse for wear. The sun itself isn't the same
sun that illuminated the darling middle ages ; but a
twinkling end of sun — the sun upon a save -all. And
the moon — the moon that shone on Cceur-de-Lion's
battle-axe — ha ! that was a moon. Now our moon
at the brightest, what is it ? A dim, dull counterfeit
moon — a pewter shilling. All vast folly, and yet very
delicious when she talks it.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 535
Audley. Yes. With a man in love 'tisn't the words
but the Hps. Now, when you're married —
Burgonet. I shall leave the service, and —
Audley. Leave the service ! The gallant Hundred-
and-Fourth will soon be a skeleton.
Burgonet. The Hundred-and-Fourth has suffered
by marriage of late ; but what more ?
Audley. I am concerned for a spinster to purchase
her husband out of your regiment. She's saved the
money for her bargain, and I only wait an answer
from headquarter to —
{Enter Mrs. Peachdown.
Mrs. Peachdown. Pardon me, Mr. Audley. I've
been detained on my way — detained to look at my
Stonehenge.
Audley. Stonehenge, madam !
Mrs. Peachdown. Yes, such a model — made into a
work-table.
Burgonet. Stonehenge a work-table ! We shall
next have St. Paul's a money-box.
Mrs. Peachdown. Gramercy, Captain Burgonet !
Your worship is well, I trow ?
Burgonet. By my fackins, lady — well as a poor man
may be, who did not die four hundred years ago.
Mrs. Peachdowfi. By the mass, a grievous pity —
you'd been mightily improved by this.
Audley. And Stonehenge, madam ?
Mrs. Peachdown. Such a success ! Yet mark the
envy of small minds. I no sooner come out with
Stonehenge as a work-table than that horrid Lady
Mummy fit starts the Sphinx as a whatnot.
Burgonet. Thus is genius scandalized by imitation.
But take comfort, madam, nature herself — whom you
must admire, she's so old — ^nature meant it from the
beginning. Nature made man and then she made
monkeys.
536 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Mrs. Peachdown. Apropos, have you heard of Lord
Fossil ? Next week he launches such a phaeton ! The
model of the war-chariot of Caractacus, with liveries —
Burgonet. After the manner, doubtless, of the
ancient Britons. With the genius his lordship has
for going backward, we may yet see him lodging in a
cave, and boarding upon acorns.
Mrs. Peachdown. Picturesque creature ! he's quite
equal to it.
Audley. And now, madam —
Mrs. Peachdown. And now. This horrid suit !
Why did I live in this drowsy afternoon time
of the world ? Why not in the roseate dawn of
chivalry, when my own true knight — knights might
be had for love, and not for money then — would have
carried off my cause upon his lance and me upon his
palfrey afterwards !
Audley. But as the Chancellor won't fight, and as
Mr. Snowball —
Mrs. Peachdown. Mr. Snowball ! Well, if things
come to the worst, I shall mend them with a husband."
The quack, Petgoose, forestalled Richard
Feverel's father by some years in quoting from
a wise work of his own. As George Meredith's
philosopher was later to cite his Pilgrim's
Scrip, so Jerrold's doctor was wont to quote
occasionally from his Pearls to Pigs. Among
his " pearls " are :
" Not to blush for poverty is to want a proper
respect for wealth."
" Man is a creature of externals and woman's one
physician — her looking-glass."
" The bud of the rose knows not the canker at its
heart."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 587
" The daisy is death's forget-me-not."
" It was wisely given to women not to know the
counterfeit from the real thing."
" Human happiness is a plant that, when it will
not grow of itself, must be forced to grow."
" There are situations in which the highest majesty
is the profoundest silence."
John Forster, who had so cordially welcomed
Douglas Jerrold's plays in his criticisms of
twenty years before, was evidently among
those who wrote of the Catspaw, for four days
after the play was produced the author sent
him the following note of thanks :
" May 13 [1850].
" My dear Forster, — The success of this play has,
on several accounts, been a matter of much anxiety
to me. I must very heartily thank you for the
mode in which you have expressed your opinions.
Opinions themselves are no more to be thanked than
the colour of a man's eyes — they are independent of
him. But the careful and elaborate way in which
you have enjoyed, I must think, the setting forth of
whatever may be in this drama is as gratifying as
valuable to yours truly,
" D. Jerrold.
" Do you hold for Lilies.^ But — if I come to town
— I'll try and drop in for a minute."
Three days later he writes again to the same
friendly correspondent, declining to journey
to Sadlers' Wells to see The Merchant of Venice.
1 Lord Nugent's country place.
588 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" May 16 [1850].
" My dear Forster, — I will be with you in good
time. I am glad that Nugent— in his multifariousness
— did really count upon us.
" I fear I cannot be with you to-night. Islington
and— Putney, and to H.'s Shylock. Hum ! I think
—Le Jew ne vaut pas la chandelle. That is, I think as
Knight thinks for / scorn felony.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold.
" I would send you a buttercup to fling to Shylock,
but they all withered when Kitely died."
The next letter shows that Jerrold was
beginning to be troubled by the placing of his
sons out in the world. The eldest, William
Blanchard, was by now married and already
taking his place as a journalist and writer of
books, having started at first as an artist — in
which capacity he had contributed several
drawings to the Illwninated Magazine. The
second son, Douglas Edmund— always known
in the family as Edmund— was now nearly
two-and-twenty, and, as is so often the case
with young men of no special natural bent, it
was thought that he had best go into the
Civil Service, or out to the Colonies and be
forced by circumstances to find a bent. It
was to Forster again that Jerrold wrote :
"ifa2/24[1850].
" My dear Forster, — I believe you are acquainted
with Mr. Hawes. If so, may I enlist your friendship
to solicit of him any — however humble — appointment
for my son Edmund — he is twenty-one — in any of
DOUGLAS JERROLD 539
the Colonies, though I should prefer that of New
Zealand ? He is, as you know, healthy, strong and
active ; and rather of the stuff for the bush than the
clerk's desk. His only wish is to be set on his feet
somewhere abroad, and his expectation of official
advantage very limited. I can vouch for his probity
and steadiness of conduct.
" Lord John Russell — as you may read from the
enclosed, has given me a sort of promise to bear the
lad's wishes in remembrance — but time creeps on, and
his lordship — amidst his thousand labours — may very
naturally forget so small a person as yours faithfully,
"D. Jerrold."
Some time in May Jerrold and Knight went
off again on a short holiday together, this time
to the beautiful Lake District, as is duly
recorded by Harriet Martineau in her autobiog-
raphy :
" Among the guests of that spring were three who
came together, and who together made an illustrious
week — Mr, Charles Knight, Mr. Douglas Jerrold and
Mr. Atkinson. Four days were spent in making the
circuit of the district which forms the ground-plan of
my ' Complete Guide,' and memorable days they
were. We were amused at the way in which some
bystander at Strands recorded his sense of this in a
Kendal paper. He told how the tourists were begin-
ning to appear for the season, and how I had been
seen touring with a party of the elite of the literary
world, etc., etc. He declared that I with the elite
had crossed the mountains in a gig to Strands, and
that wit and repartee had genially flowed throughout
the evening; an evening, as it happened, when our
conversation was rather grave. I was so amused at
540 DOUGLAS JERROLD
this that I cut out the paragraph and sent it to Mr.
Jerrold, who wrote back that while the people were
about it they might have put us in a howdah on the
back of an elephant. It would have been as true as
the gig and far grander. I owed the pleasure of Mr.
Jerrold's acquaintance to Mr. Knight ; and I wish I
had known him more. My first impression was one
of surprise — not at his remarkable appearance, of
which I was aware ; the eyes and the mobile counte-
nance, the stoop and the small figure, reminding me
of Coleridge, without being like him — but at the
gentle and thoughtful kindness which set its mark
on all he said and did. Somehow, all his good things
were so dropped as to fall into my trumpet, without
any trouble or ostentation. This was the dreaded
and unpopular man who must have been hated (for
he was hated) as Punch and not as Jerrold — ^through
fear and not through reason or through feeling. His
wit always appeared to me as gentle as it was honest
— as innocent as it was sound. I could say of him,
as of Sydney Smith, that I never heard him say, in
the way of raillery, anything of others that I should
mind his saying of me. I never feared him in the
least — ^nor saw reason why any but knaves and fools
should fear him."
The Mr. Atkinson of the party was presumably
the H. G. Atkinson who in the following year
collaborated with Harriet Martineau in those
Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature which were
much talked about and laughed at at the time,
but which now rest unread, the book the tone
of which was summed up by Douglas Jerrold
in the mot, " There is no God — and Harriet
Martineau is his prophet."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 541
Shortly after the return from the trip thus
pleasantly kept in memory by his hostess,
Jerrold made one of the party of friends which
Charles Dickens invited to a banquet at the
Star and Garter at Richmond to celebrate the
completion of David Copper field. Tennyson,
then living at Twickenham, Thackeray and
Mark Lemon, were of the party, and Forster
in his brief notice of the occasion says that he
had rarely seen Dickens happier than in the
sunshine of that day. Thackeray, Dickens,
Forster and Jerrold returned to town together,
and a little argument took place between
Thackeray and Jerrold about money and its
uses. Unfortunately, the Boswell of the occa-
sion did not make a note of their points of
view — he was only concerned with the words
of Boz.
When Wordsworth died in the early part of
1850 there was some delay in appointing his
successor in the Laureateship. Jerrold, who
was one of those who hoped that the office
would be allowed to lapse, wrote on May 24 to
the Times, making a suggestion that was not
acted upon :
" Sir, — As yet no one has been appointed to the
Laureateship ; and the belief is strengthening that
the function of Court poet has ceased to be — a
memory of the past with the office of the Court
jester.
" Shakespeare's house has been purchased for the
nation by certain of the people; and there was a
very confident hope expressed by the Committee
542 DOUGLAS JERROLD
for such purchase — a hope sufficient to be enter-
tained by a member of the Cabinet, that a provision
would be made for the endowment of a wardenship
of the birthplace of the poet.
" May I be permitted to suggest, in the event of
the determination of the place of the Laureate, that
the salary that would otherwise cease with it should
endow the post of keepership of the house at Stratford-
upon-Avon ? If the Court bays — with the Court
cap-and-bells — are to be cast aside, at least let the
salary that recommended the laurel reward a worthier
office — that of custos of the hearth of the world's
teacher.
" ' Warden of the house of Shakespeare, vice post
of Poet Laureate abolished ' would, I am bold to
think, be a no less grateful than graceful an-
nouncement, if officially set forth to the people of
England.
" I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
" Douglas Jerrold."
During June, Mrs. Jerrold w^as unwell, and
a cottage was taken for two or three months
at Eastbourne, and thence Jerrold wrote to
Forster :
" Oak Cottage,
" Eastbourne, June 24 [1850].
" My dear Forster, — I have only just learned of
my wife that a book — addressed to Mr. E. B. Lytton,
under your care — was left at Whitefriars to be sent
on to you. This was done in the hurry and spasm
of moving : I had intended to bring it with me on
the Saturday to your chambers, but forgetting it,
my wife had it left in Bouverie St. This, I hope,
will explain the nakedness of the packet.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 543
" I think I shall be in town on Monday next and
part of Tuesday, when I will take my chance of finding
you within. I pity those who even rule the roast of
London at the present range of the thermometer.
Here 'tis delicious.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
It was while at Eastbourne that Jerrold read
Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, published during
this summer, and there found a sneer at himself
which moved him to indignant protest in the
form of a letter to the editor of the Athenceum :
" Sir, — There are two passages in the Autobiography
of Mr. Leigh Hunt that, in my opinion, singularly lack
that toleration and charity which so very aboundingly
distinguish that gentleman's last published account
between the world and himself. Mr. Hunt, it appears,
has failed to obtain a stage for certain dramas which
he has written. Managers reject them because,
according to the implied reasons of Mr. Hunt, he is
not a journalist — is not ' one of the leaders in Punch.*
Permit me to give Mr. Hunt's words.
" ' A manager confessed the other day that he
would never bring out a new piece, if he could help
it, as long as he could make money by old ones. He
laughed at every idea of a management but a com-
mercial one; and held at nought the public wish for
novelty, provided he could get as many persons to
come to his theatre as would fill it. Being asked
why he brought out any new pieces, when such were
his opinions, he complained that people connected
with the press forced the compositions of themselves
and their friends upon him ; and, being asked what he
meant by forced, he replied that the press would
544 DOUGLAS JERROLD
make a dead set at his theatre if he acted otherwise,
and so ruin him.'
" Then follows the subjoined note in the index —
" ' Owing to an accident of haste at the moment
of going to press, the following remark was omitted
after the words so ruin him. I know not, it is true,
how far a manager might not rather have invited
than feared a dramatist of so long a standing and of
such great popularity as Douglas Jerrold ; but it is
to be doubted whether even Douglas Jerrold, with all
his popularity, and all his wit, to boot, would have
found the doors of a theatre opened to him with so
much facility, had he not been a journalist and one
of the leaders in Punch.''
" Within the last five years I have written two
comedies, both produced by Mr. Webster — as Mr.
Hunt would imply — in timid deference to the journalist
and one of the leaders in Punch. Mr. Hunt, more-
over, assuming that the dramatist, as one of the
aforesaid leaders, would have used his pen as a
poisoned quill against the interests of the denying
manager. I will not trust myself with a full expres-
sion of the scorn that arises within me at this sur-
prising assumption on the part of Mr. Leigh Hunt,
who, it is clear to me, with all his old before -the -
curtain experience, knows little of the working of a
theatre. Otherwise, he would readily allow that the
treasurer is the really potent critic; the night's and
week's returns at the doors, not the morning or
weekly article, the allowed theatrical voucher to the
value of the dramatist. Yet, in the opinion of Mr.
Hunt, it is the despotism of the playwriter, when
connected with a journal, that forces on a manager
the acceptance of a comedy — moreover condemning
him to act the unprofitable production some ninety
successive nights : the audience, it would seem.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 545
bowing to the tyrannous infliction of the play, in defer-
ence to the journalist and one of the leaders in Punch.
" Before I was out of my teens it was my fortune
to be compelled to write for the minor theatres ; at
a time when even large success at these despised
places — degraded by a monopoly that has ceased to
exist — was most injurious to the endeavours of the
young dramatist desirous of obtaining an original
hearing at the patent houses, which, at the time and
in their treasury stress, were making free use of the
very ' minor ' drama of the unacknowledged aspirant.
I have served full three apprenticeships to the English
drama ; and though even its best rewards haply fall
very short of the profits of a master cotton spinner,
they have never in my case — I can assure Mr. Hunt —
been levied on the fears of a manager with a threat
of ' Your stage or my journal.'
" With every wish to maintain an esteem for Mr.
Hunt as a writer — an esteem that dates from my
earliest boyhood — I must protest against his pains-
taking use of my dramatic success — such as it has
been — as an illustration of the injustice set down to
Mr. Hunt's old brotherhood of journalists ; namely,
that they would make ' a dead set ' against any
manager who should refuse to risk his treasury on
their stage experiments ! An odd compliment this,
at parting, from the first editor of the Examiner to
the journalists of 1850 !
" It is a pity in the summing up of his literary
life — a life that has been valuable to letters and to
liberty — that Mr. Hunt should have sought the cause
of his own stage disappointments in the fancied stage
tyranny and meanness of others. Pity, that his ink,
so very sweet in every other page of his Autobiography,
should suddenly curdle in the page dramatic.
" July 4, 1850."
VOL. II. N
546 DOUGLAS JERROLD
It was, indeed, an unworthy sneer in which
the veteran had permitted himself to indulge,
and the dramatist who had seen upwards of
fifty of his plays staged long before Punch
had been projected might be excused a feeling
of deep annoyance. Indeed, he might well
feel really hurt that the veteran of whose early
independence of spirit and of whose beautiful
poetic fancy he had long been an admirer,
and for whom he had had a strong personal
feeling, could make disappointment and pique
lead him to so stupid an utterance. Leigh
Hunt had been looked up to as a leader in
that cause to which Jerrold's pen was whole-
heartedly devoted, had been a cordially wel-
comed visitor at Putney, but Jerrold was not
one who could condone such an unfounded
and unworthy attack, and it cannot be said
that his resentment was unjustified.
The next letter to Forster suggests that the
attempt to find a post for Edmund Jerrold was
progressing favourably.
" July 9 [1850], Eastbourne.
" My dear Forster, — I will be with you punctu-
ally— thanks and many thanks for your friendship in
the matter.
" I was in town for two hours yesterday : had in-
tended to preside at a ' Post ' meeting ; but on my
arrival found that a most stupid, vulgar, even nasty
bill had been circulated by the committee, without
any communication with myself — whereupon I de-
clined and straightway returned here. I know not
how the matter went off; but the bill was of a kind
DOUGLAS JERROLD 547
to invite such ruffians as Reynolds, etc. I hope the
cause has not been injured.
" Friday is, I fear, a busy day with you. If, how-
ever, Lord Ashley compels you to have finished early
enough, will you go to the play — Rachel, for instance —
as I must come up in the afternoon to be in time for
Hawes on Sat. ?
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
The visits to town from the Sussex watering-
place appear to have been fairly frequent, for
little more than a week elapsed before another
journey was arranged :
" July 18 [1850].
" My dear Forster, — As I must be in London on
Saturday and some time on Monday — in re Mayhew,
whom God make wiser ! — I will be of the party.
Self and bag at 58 on Sat. at little after eleven.
" Truly yours,
" Douglas Jerrold."
What the party was cannot now be said,
nor can it be said in what Henry Mayhew' s
" unwisdom " lay. Before the month was out
came another call to town, but the tempta-
tion was resisted, for Jerrold was at work on
a promised comedy for Benjamin Webster,
and, as the next letter to Forster indicates,
was in need of that which the comedy repre-
sented owing to many demands upon his
purse :
" Saturday [July 27, 1850], Eastbourne.
'* My dear Forster, — I should like to come on
Wednesday — particularly so as I recognize your
548 DOUGLAS JERROLD
further friendly zeal in the matter — but I am pretty
well time -bound, and must spare no more days from
my work until it is completed, for on that and other
work (' he must shed much more ink ') depends my
chance of fitting out Ned, Weekly News, sons and
son-in-law have finished me; and for awhile — but
only for awhile — ^the iron (pen) must enter the soul of
" Yours ever truly,
" D. Jerrold.
" I am in the heart of Act II— and hope to finish
Act III in about three weeks. Then I address myself
to the drama for the Keans.
" The matter is more urgent as to my boy, because
it is plain that the Cabinet of Russell & Co. is not as
fixed as Arthur's Seat."
Other than family demands followed him
to Eastbourne, where a letter reached him
from John Westland Marston asking help for
some one for whom it was apparently hoped
to obtain a Civil List pension.
" Eastbourne, July 29 [1850].
" My dear Marston, — My absence from town will
prevent me from doing what I could have wished with
the tickets for the benefit. I might have disposed
of several; though in these matters I have the
pensive experience to know that people too frequently
look upon the soliciting party as almost soliciting for
himself. Personally, I have already done my best in
this unfortunate cause. By the way, Macready wrote
to me a day or two ago, making inquiries. From the
answer I returned, you have doubtless heard from him.
" I think the draft of your letter to Russell fully
meets the case. I wish I could sign it : but — on
DOUGLAS JERROLD 549
consideration — with a sense of self-respect I cannot ;
inasmuch as, from past correspondence between his
Lordship and myself, I would not be even one of a
million to solicit of him the pension of one diurnal
penny loaf.
" However, you will not, I [know] lack names ;
far better under any circumstances, than that of,
" My dear Marston,
" Yours truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
In what way Lord John Russell had offended
does not appear. It may be surmised that the
promise to find an opening for Edmund remain-
ing unfulfilled Douglas Jerrold felt a natural
objection to any further application to Lord
John.
The stay at Eastbourne was unpleasantly
diversified by an attempted burglary at Oak
Cottage, as is amusingly set forth in a portion
of a letter to Charles Knight :
"... I never really complained of Eastbourne in
an impatient spirit. Last night, some hours after
the foregoing was in ink, I received a deputation of
housebreakers — real, earnest housebreakers. It was a
great compliment, I conceive, to our air-drawn plate-
chest. They attempted an entrance at the servant's
bedroom, but without effect, breaking a pane of glass
in the attempt to force the sash. Unhappily, Ned's
gun got up without more than one night -cap, so one
pop was all that was permitted. We sat up till four,
had the late police, and I now hope for the best. A
desperate Lewes gang (only think of the name !) have
prowled about these parts. Twelve out of thirteen
550 DOUGLAS JERROLD
known have recently been transported. The pohce-
man X tells me that our friends of last night were
no doubt a remnant of Israel. After all, Eastbourne
is not so bad.
" Wife much frightened, but Polly quite a Maid of
Saragossa. We made a fire, and, with a thought of
Bailie Jarvie, I put in two pokers to air; but the
ungrateful burglars did not return for them ..."
During the stay at Eastbourne the leader of
a small company of strolling actors waited on
the dramatist and asked for his patronage for
their performance. Douglas Jerrold duly gave
his " bespeak " and he and his family went to
the theatre, which, his son says, was then a
barn, and witnessed a performance of The
Love Chase— one of the best of the comedies
by Jerrold's friend, Sheridan Knowles. It
would appear that matters theatrical had not
improved much in Eastbourne from the days
of 1789, when Dibdin there joined the company
to which Douglas Jerrold's father had belonged.
A few days later came another invitation —
a particularly tempting one to the sea-loving
author — when he was asked to go a trip in
Lord Nugent's yacht; but the call of work
dictated a refusal :
" Oak Cottage, Eastbourne, August 2 [1850].
" My dear Lord Nugent, — The ink has been
thick, and would not run. I must therefore — I
should have written to-day, had I not received yours —
lose the experimental trip. I have a certain task to
do; which I must accomplish; as there are certain
treasury conditions involved in said accomplishment
DOUGLAS JERROLD 551
which alone can guarantee my voyage. Besides this,
my word is passed with two managers ; and they must
have the MSS.
" In this strait three or four days — as I am behind
time already — would greatly interfere with the grand
design. And I have just now got into the swing of
work, and can't hazard a stop. I'm very sorry for
this, as I should have highly enjoyed the first skimming
of the Sea Gull ; to whose wings I commend you with
best wishes.
" Yours ever truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The *' two managers " to whom the
dramatist's word was passed were Benjamin
Webster, for whom Retired from Business was
being completed during the stay at Eastbourne,
and Charles Kean, for whom a delightful
comedy was outlined. Back at Putney in
September the dramatist found it necessary to
write to Kean and request a payment on
account of the piece that he had in hand for
the Princess's Theatre :
" West Lodge, Putney Common, September 24, 1850.
" My dear Sir, — I hope this will find you up and
stirring. I would not further disturb you on Sunday
— gout was a sufficient intruder. Part of my purpose
was to ask you to allow me to anticipate — (being
otherwise and very unexpectedly disappointed) — to
the amount of £100 on the drama I am writing for
you. I hope to complete it by the latter end of next
month. Nothing will interfere %\ith its completion.
" With compliments to Mrs. Kean,
" Yours faithfully,
"D. Jerrold."
552 DOUGLAS JERROLD
The obtaining of an appointment for Edmund
still hung fire. The chance of getting one in
the Colonial service appears to have called for
an outlay which did not seem justified —
possibly it meant fitting him out and sending
him on the possibility of an appointment on
arrival; that his father evidently thought it
better to remind Lord John Russell of his
promise is made evident by the following
note :
" Wednesday [September 25, 1850].
" My dear Forster, — I will drop in upon you
some vacant day. (I left Nugent getting stronger
than ever ; he'll be in town this week). Have you at
hand — when I call — L'* John's letter I sent you. I
shall — on his return to town — drop him one more
brief epistle, when I want to quote his ipsissima verba.
I can't risk the £200 on the indefiniteness of the
Colonial Office : unless some appointment were made
certain, I should not — as I conceive — be justified in
the speculation.
" Yours ever truly,
" D. Jerrold."
The " brief epistle " appears to have been
written and to have elicited a satisfactory
reply, for a few days later Jerrold wrote again :
" My dear Forster, — You will, I am sure, like to
know that this day I've rec'^ a letter from Lord
John. He writes : ' I hope very soon to be able to
place your son in the public service.' This is a great
relief to me.
" Not yet quite subsided to the prose of life ; but
always yours faithfully,
" D. Jerrold."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 553
In November the *' Splendid Strollers '*
journeyed to Knebworth as guests of Lord
Lytton, that they might give private per-
formances of Every Man in His Humour —
Jerrold taking again his part of Master Stephen.
Lytton, Dickens, Jerrold and others planned a
'* Guild of Literature and Art " for the benefit
of writers and artists who in their old age had
fallen on evil days, and it was in these per-
formances the scheme had its start. There
were, later, many other performances with the
same laudable but insufficiently thought-out
end in view. Money was raised, some " homes "
were built, but the scheme never really pros-
pered, and the " Guild " after lingering for a
number of years finally disappeared. Had the
scheme been limited to the providing of small
pensions to be bestowed on those whom it was
designed to benefit — it might in time have been
a useful supplement to the ridiculous amount
allotted for such a purpose by the state. For
the strollers' later performances Lytton wrote a
comedy, all the profits of which were to go to
the Guild.
" I left Nugent getting stronger than ever,"
Douglas Jerrold had written to Forster at the
end of September, after a visit to Lilies, the
literary and radical nobleman's seat in Buck-
inghamshire. Just two months later Lord
Nugent died at Lilies, on November 26, and
Jerrold felt the loss of a lately made but
sympathetic friend. He wrote to Cowden
Clarke a few days after the event :
554 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Putney, December 2, 1850.
" My dear Clarke, — I have received book, for
which thanks, and best wishes for that and all followers.
Over a sea-coal fire, this week — all dark and quiet
outside — I shall enjoy its flavour. Best regards, I
mean love, to the authoress. Poor dear Nugent !
He and I became great friends : I've had many
happy days with him at Lilies. A noble, cordial man ;
and — ^the worst of it — ^his foolish carelessness of health
has flung away some ten or fifteen years of genial
winter — frosty, but kindly. God be with him, and
all yours.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
The following fragment of a letter to Charles
Knight appears to belong to this time, for of
the " fairy tale " we hear more immediately
after. The " Glass Palace " was, of course, the
building in Hyde Park which Joseph Paxton
was erecting for the Great Exhibition of 1851.
The story of Paxton's building — on which
Douglas Jerrold was to fix the lasting name
of the Crystal Palace — has often been told, but
in connection with the mention of the great
gardener here it may be added that somewhere
about this time Douglas Jerrold's youngest
son, Thomas Serle, was placed under Paxton
at Chatsworth that he might learn the art of
gardening. The note to Knight runs :
Wednesday, 11, night.
"My dear Knight, — I will be with you on the
21st, but shall hope to see you on Saturday night :
however, don't wait ; as I may be kept at Glass Palace,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 555
where I've to meet Paxton. I'm stunned and stupe-
fied by the weather ; with an inside Hning of fog ; and
I've got to write — that is, expected to do so — with
the point of a sunbeam a certain fairy tale ; which
your Uttle friends are sniffling over.^ However, after
Xmas, won't we have some hoHdays ? "
A brief note to John Abraham Heraud on
December 10 mentions the title of a short
story, in the completion of which the writer
has been somewhat delayed by " a seasonable
^ Though the reference to a fairy story here may well
be to The Sick Giant and the Doctor Dwarf, I may mention
that there is an untraced fairy story by Douglas Jerrold
entitled The Carol, of which I have a few proof sheets,
pp. 87-90, 95-6. From these pages it is seen to be the
story of a man imprisoned in stone like the legendary
frog in marble. I quote a portion of it in case some
reader may know of the story as appearing in one of the
old annuals that I have overlooked :
" ' You laugh ! ' cried the Voice ; ' well, now I've
hopes of you. Come, you will knock away this marble
into the old fellow's head, and I — I will be as the frog
in it.'
" ' You the frog ! '—
" ' I — the frog ! But such a frog as the old man never
yet heard croak : such a frog, with such a pair of eyes, as
never stared from a pond. Ha ! ha ! Already I feel a
tadpole in the heart of the marble ! As you chip and
chip, tadpole shall grow and grow ; and at length ' — said
the Voice, engagingly — ' at length look with life through
those stony eyes ; move with life those stony lips ! And
so looking, and so speaking, be such a monitor, such a
teacher to the old wicked thing, that — ho ! ho ! — how
he'll curse the frog in his stone head — the frog in his
marble brains — the frog in his eyes — the frog in his throat ! '
" ' Be it so — I'll do the work,' said the prisoner cheerily.
" ' Begin then,' rejoined the Voice; and then it seemed
as if it suddenly spoke from the core of the block.
* Begin,' it cried, ' I want eyes — ej'cs ! Give the poor
frog eyes ! Let the frog stare from the marble ! Eyes-
eyes ! ' "
556 DOUGLAS JERROLD
cold," as The Sick Giant and the Doctor Dwarf.
That story duly appeared in the Christmas
supplement of the Illustrated London News
with dainty illustrations by William Harvey.
It is a pleasant little fairy story, or morality,
" showing how much better it is to educate
than to destroy." This note being addressed
to Heraud suggests that he had some official
connection with the Illustrated London News
at the time. The epic poet, dramatic critic
and miscellaneous writer was more than once
the object of Jerrold's fun. Presumably
Heraud, too, was suffering from a " seasonable
cold " when he met Jerrold and was saluted
with the laughing remark, " I say, your nose
is red, your cheeks are red, and your tie is
red, in fact everything is read about you —
except your books ! "
Heraud 's daughter— Miss Edith Heraud— in
writing her reminiscences some years ago
referring to her early leanings towards the
stage, said :
" With one notable exception, no disposition was
manifested by my father's friends to restrain my
girlish flights and temper my enthusiasm. This
notable exception appeared in the person of the
late Douglas Jerrold. The first time he saw me,
Douglas Jerrold twitted me upon the subject of my
tragic aspirations. ' You can't play tragedy,' he
said ; ' take to comedy — that's your forte.' The more
I remonstrated, the more he persisted and held his
groimd. It was certainly most provoking. I do not
believe that in his heart Douglas Jerrold entertained
DOUGLAS JERROLD 557
any opinion of the kind ; he only said it to tease me
and bring me down from the skies to a more convenient
level."
That the attitude was merely one of teasing
playfulness may be believed, for when, in 1851,
Miss Heraud made her debut, as Juliet, Douglas
Jerrold was among the friends of her father
who went to Richmond to witness the per-
formance. Miss Heraud also says that her
father was present when Jerrold — it was at the
house of a mutual friend :
" held forth somewhat vehemently upon the subject
of commonsense. ' If there were more common-
sense in the world,' he exclaimed, ' there would be
more happiness than wickedness.' I cannot remember
the exact line of argument pursued by Jerrold, but
he arrived at the ultimatum that the want of common -
sense was the reason why so few of us would ultimately
reach heaven, and so many be propelled in an opposite
direction. My father remarked that if this were so,
the lack of companionship in heaven would make
heaven itself a very dull place. ' The conclusion I
have come to ! ' cried Jerrold, ' for my own part,
I think I would rather go to hell in company than to
heaven in solitude.' ' Good,' laughed my father,
entering into the spirit of the joke, ' but then you
know, Jerrold, that may be your want of common-
sense.'
" Poor Douglas Jerrold ! As I write these lines,
visions of Black-Eyed Susan and the thousands of
tearful eyes that witnessed it float before me; and
often, when acting in this pathetic nautical drama,
I have wondered if the author, when he wrote it,
was charged with a superabundance, or the reverse,
558 DOUGLAS JERROLD
of the commodity he so highly prized — common -
sense."
It is perhaps only natural to regard the
recollected conversations of many years ago
as containing the rough gist of the matter,
rather than the actual words employed.
CHAPTER XVII
" COLLECTED WORKS " — SHERIDAN KNOWLES .*
" CHILD OF NATURE " — " RETIRED FROM
business" — A ROYAL PERFORMANCE —
" Lloyd's "
1851—1852
On the first day of the New Year of 1851
there began to be pubhshed a Collected Edition
of the Writings of Douglas Jerrold in a form
which may be taken as illustrating the popu-
larity of his writings. The prospectus of this
collected edition ran,
" Many of these remain in the piecemeal form in
which they were originally published, or lie scattered
over the periodical literature of the last fifteen years ;
and as all of them, in a greater or less degree, have
achieved a popular reputation, it is hoped that their
republication in a cheap and uniform edition will
be acceptable to the public. They will comprise —
I. Novels, II. Tales, III. Essays, IV. Comedies and
Dramas, and will probably extend to six volumes.
" The size adopted will be that of Mr. Dickens's
Cheap Editions, but the lines will extend across the
page instead of being in columns.
" The mode of publication will be in Weekly
Numbers, of sixteen pages each; and in Monthly
Parts; and, finally, in Volumes.
" The price of each Number will be Ijd.; and the
659
560 DOUGLAS JERROLD
average of each Volume will be about twenty-four
Numbers."
I have never seen copies of the weekly-
issue, but presume that they were issued, as
were the monthly ones, in grey wrappers.
For three and a half years this serial issue of
the collected writings went on until the work
was completed in eight volumes. Though en-
titled a " Collected " edition, it was not in any
sense complete, indeed it contained but little
of Jerrold's scattered writings beyond such as
had already been gathered into Men of Char-
acter^ and Cakes and Ale, with The Story of a
Feather, St. Giles and St. James, the Chronicles
of Clovernook, Punch'' s Letters, and fewer than
a fourth of his plays. The issue was hailed
by a writer in the Athenceum at the time as
" welcome not only for the intrinsic and durable
quality of the writings — ^than which few things
that have appeared in our age in the range of
imaginative literature can boast of finer veins
of thought or more original soarings of fancy —
but also on account of the difficulties which
have long beset the collector of temporary
literature in the attempt to obtain the various
dramas, essays and tales which constitute Mr.
Jerrold's works." Another writer was no less
enthusiastic, saying : " This collection will
enable the reading public of the present day to
trace the more serious, subtle and profound
views of thought which — unknown to many —
constitute the higher literary merits of the
DOUGLAS JERROLD 561
successful dramatist. In some of Mr. Jerrold's
anonymous essays there are flights of fancy
and depths of thinking quite Shakespearean.
It is not the finer veins of feeling and imagina-
tion which he has successfully worked that most
readily coin themselves into currency. There
is a poetry in works of Mr. Jerrold's little
understood by those who look on the author
principally as the impersonation of Punch.''
This serial issue of the collected writings con-
tinued week by week and month by month from
January 1851 to June 1854, but, as has been
said, was far from complete, leaving out over
fifty of the plays and many of the shorter
scattered writings.
A couple of paragraphs from the preface
may be quoted for the directly autobiographical
note rare in Jerrold's work :
" The completion of the first volume of a collected
edition of his writings — scattered over the space of
years — is an opportunity tempting to the vanity of a
writer to indulge in a retrospect of the circumstances
that first made authorship his hope, as well as of
the general tenor of his after vocation. I will not,
at least, in these pages, yield to the inducement
further than to say that, self-helped and self-guided,
I began the world at an age when, as a general rule,
boys have not laid down their primers; that the
cockpit of a man-of-war was at thirteen exchanged
for the struggle of London; that appearing in print
ere perhaps the meaning of words was duly mastered
— no one can be more alive than myself to the worth -
lessness of such early mutterings."
VOL. n. o
562 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" In conclusion, I submit this volume [St. Giles and
St. James] to the generous interpretation of the reader.
Some of it has been called ' bitter ' ; indeed, ' bitter '
has, I think, a little too often been the ready word
when certain critics have condescended to bend their
eyes upon my page : so ready, that were my ink redo-
lent of myrrh and frankincense, I well know the
sort of ready-made criticism that would cry, with a
denouncing shiver, ' Aloes ; aloes.' "
The first letter of 1851 is one addressed to
Peter Cunningham, a friend who, as many
more distinguished men of letters were to do,
joined the duties of a position in the Civil
Service with the delights of authorship. Cun-
ningham, who had a post in the Audit Office
at Somerset House, had sent Jerrold a copy
of the Gentleman's Magazine containing an
article on Nell Gwynne, an essay which was
but a tentative attempt at a subject of which
Cunningham made a whole book a year or
two later.
"Putney, January 6, 1851.
" My dear Cunningham, — Thanks for Nell Gwynne :
I hope she will not always remain under the protection
of Mr. Urban, but appear between her own covers.
Why, too, give no more than six pages — only half-a-
dozen oranges ? There should have been twenty at
least.
" I ' see by the papers ' that the folks at Somerset
House are to rise henceforth, not by time, but by their
own virtues. Knowing this, I ' stand upon the
shoulders of Time '—a very little Time— Time, jun.
and already see you at the head of the office.
" Truly yours,
" Douglas Jerrold."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 563
In his magazines and newspaper Douglas
Jerrold always made a point of holding out
a hand of encouragement to young writers,
and wished them to sign their contributions
on the grounds that it was not just for one
all-powerful writer to keep his own name
prominently forward while those of his col-
laborators were suppressed ; and on this matter
he had a sly dig at Charles Dickens. When the
great novelist was starting Household Words
and said that he would like to have contribu-
tions but that all must be anonymous, " Yes,"
remarked Jerrold drily, " so I see, for the name
of Charles Dickens is on every page ! " The
encouragement which he, perhaps sometimes
too readily, gave as editor, he also readily
gave as friend, as we see in the above pleasant
note to Peter Cunningham. Another acknow-
ledgment of about this time was sent to
William C. Bennett :
" Many thanks for your ' Poems.' Many of them
were old friends ; but I was very happy to enlarge
my circle. I hope that even this money-changing
age will not ' willingly let die ' many of the charming
home-touched truths of your muse."
At length young Edmund duly received his
nomination to a Civil Service appointment,
the news being sent to John Forster in a couple
of short notes :
"January 11 [1851].
" My dear Forster, — I will be with you certain :
half-past six : 18th.
564 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Ned ' goes down to the Treasury ' on Tuesday :
the post is in the Commissariat Dep^
" Ever truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
" Monday {January 14, 1851].
" My dear Forster, — On Saturday next — yes.
But I write to say that Ned has been to the Treasury,
and has passed with some credit ; to my great relief,
for like his father and unlike Cassio, I didn't think him
an arithmetician. He has, however, worked very
hard. Sir C. Trevelyan tells him he will be installed
on Friday.
" Ever yours,
" D. Jerrold."
Then another friend's book had to be acknow-
ledged, for James Sheridan Knowles, v^^riter, in
The Hunchback and The Love Chase, of two
of the best comedies of the nineteenth century,
who had become possessed of a fanatical anti-
Roman zeal, sent to Putney a little work on
The Church Demolished by its Own Priest.
That Jerrold himself was a strong anti-Romanist
his occasional writings in Punch and elsewhere
abundantly testify, but whether he was able
to say a good word for his fellow dramatist's
book cannot be ascertained. The following is
Sheridan Knowles's reply to a letter of thanks :
" 65, York Place, Edinburgh, February 12, 1851.
" My dear Jerrold, — I thank you for acknow-
ledging my letter. I know how pressing and numerous
are your useful avocations ; and therefore drew no
unkind or unfavourable conclusions from delay.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 565
" If, my dear Jerrold, you entertain the intention
of helping my Httle work, do it as quickly as you
conveniently can, and as powerfully, too — and do so
from the motive that led me to construct it — Honour
for our God and Redeemer, in endeavouring to rend
off from the tree of Christianity the parasite of priest-
craft which hides and cramps what it embraces for
its own pernicious ends.
" My whole theology lies in the Word of God. Not
once have I glanced from that Word in prosecuting
my labours. Unskilled in the works of divines — an
utter stranger to what others have written on my side
of the question, I approached the task in perfect yet
humble confidence that I should find munition enough
for the contest in the armoury of the Bible — though
with that munition I did not dare to furnish myself ;
but with prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, implored
that ic might be accorded me. This is not the
language of a zealot, but of one that believes in the
directions and promises of God.
" Now is the time. The work succeeds. Upwards
of six hundred copies have already been sold. A few
words from you, and one or two other friends, would
sweep away the rest of the edition in a week. Jerrold,
you know me ! It is the cause ! — The Searcher of
Hearts that knows it is the cause ! Our God knows
that to Him — and to Him alone — whatever of power,
or light, or truth the pages which I have written may
contain.
" But what is the legislature about ? Is the Jesuit
still to be suffered in the land ? We see the fruits
of his being permitted to locate himself here ; and
we shall see more of them, if he be suffered to remain !
At him, Jerrold ! — At him with all the vigour of your
arm of nerve — irresistible in its singleness and
integrity.
566 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" With the help of God, I go to work again — to
demolish tradition with the Bible ! — to demolish it
by the very arguments with which it is attempted
to be maintained ! I am only breathing a little
before I begin.
" I am glad that my little work pleases you; but
I rejoice at its doing so upon higher grounds than
those of personal vanity.
" Your letter made me very happy, and again
thanking you for it, I am most faithfully, and with
prayerful wishes for your happiness, here and here-
after, your affectionate friend,
" James Sheridan Knowles."
In an early number of the Cornhill Magazine
there appeared a paper on " A Child of Nature,"
which was very evidently a representation of
this genial Irishman who had published his
first volume at the age of twelve, had been a
soldier, a doctor, an actor, and a schoolmaster
before he made his great successes as a dramatist,
and long before he became an ardent Baptist
and ran atilt at Rome. In the Cornhill paper
he is disguised as " T.," and these stories are
there told about him in relation with Jerrold :
" One day Douglas Jerrold, who liked and laughed
at him, happening to quote a familiar passage from
Milton, T. exclaimed with enthusiasm, ' That's fine !
Who said that ? '
" ' Come, T., don't pretend that you don't know
it's Milton.'
" ' Me, dear boy, I've never read him.'
" ' Never read Milton ! and you a poet ! '
" ' I've scarcely read anything. I was suckled at
the breasts of Nature herself.'
DOUGLAS JERROLD 567
" * Yes,* retorted the terrible Jerrold, ' but you
put a deal of rum in her milk.' "
The narrator had been telling an amusing
story of '* T's " absent-mindedness when
Jerrold " capped it with the following " :
" He was one day walking with T. down Holborn,
when a gentleman came up, and was welcomed by
T. with overflowing cordiality, which the stranger
suddenly interrupted with —
" ' But you never came to dine the other day ! —
we waited for you over an hour. It was such a
disappointment ! '
" T. struck his forehead, as if remonstrating with
his oblivious weakness, and replied —
" ' No more I did ! It escaped me memory intirely.
But I tell ye hwat, I'll dine with ye on Saturday next.'
" ' Will you, Mr. T. ? '
"'I will.'
" ' Without fail ? '
" ' Without fail. At hwat hour ? '
*' ' Six, if agreeable.'
" ' At six ! '
" ' Then we may expect you next Saturday ? '
" ' Next Saturday, at six. Good-bye, God bless
ye.'
" ' Good-bye ; and mind you don't forget Saturday.'
" ' I'll be there ! God bless ye ! Saturday, at
six — good-bye — at six.'
" The stranger departed, and T. continued shouting
good-byes after him; then, putting his arm within
Jerrold's, he walked on a few paces in si ence, and at
length said, quietly —
" ' I wonder hwat the devil his name is now ? '
" Jerrold used to tell of his trying to get T. to write
568 DOUGLAS JERROLD
a life of Shakespeare for a bookseller, who offered to
pay liberally for it. T. was standing behind the scenes
of the Haymarket when the proposal was made, and
to the amusement of Jerrold and the actors, he
exclaimed — ' Me dear Jerrold ! I couldnH — indeed, I
couldn't ! Don't ask it ! I couldn't. Me riverence
for that immortal bard is such — don't ask it ! A Life
of Shakespeare ? I couldn't touch it.'
" ' Nonsense, T. : no man would do it better.'
" ' Write Shakespeare's life ? Think of it, me
boy ! Think of me feelings. I couldn't— no money
could induce me. Besides,' he added, as if this
were quite by the way — ' besides, / know very little
about him.'' "
At the end of February of this year the
great tragedian W. C. Macready gave his fare-
well performance, and was duly honoured
with a dinner, when Lytton took the chair
and many notable people joined in homage
to the well-graced actor on his leaving the
stage. Jerrold was at the farewell performance,
but was apparently prevented from attending
the dinner, for writing to John Forster he said :
" [March 4, 1851].
" My dear Forster, — I am, no doubt, merely
echoing a determination already expressed ; neverthe-
less, I'll run the risk of the echo.
" Should not a little book — an historical book —
be put forth containing all that is worthy of record
of the Farewell Night, the Dinner, etc., etc. — bearing
upon Macready's retirement ?
" I was deprived of a great pleasure. But a cold
I caught in the stalls — between the orchestra door
DOUGLAS JERROLD 569
and the passage — on Wednesday and improved in a
cab on Thursday night, at this present writing even
doubles me up, and threaten eth me with a bout of
rheumatism.
" We meet, I shall conclude, on the 12th for reading.
" Ever yours,
" D. Jerrold."
The " reading " was probably that of Bulwer
Lytton's Not So Bad as We Seem, which the
company kept together by Charles Dickens's
enthusiasm had promised to produce for the
benefit of the Guild of Literature and Art,
and for the production of which the Duke of
Devonshire had offered to lend Devonshire
House. Jerrold had undertaken a part in
the cast — Dickens wrote to Lytton : " As to
Jerrold, there he stands in the play ! " which
suggests that the author had kept in mind
Jerrold's impersonation of Master Stephen
in Jonson's comedy when delineating the char-
acter of Mr. Shadowly Softhead. Apparently
Charles Knight was not in the cast at first,
as his friend wrote to Forster at the end of
March : " Knight is most desirous of the part
of Hodge — so much so that I think he would
feel slighted to be left out of the scheme."
Knight got his wish.
While the dramatist was thus once again
about to engage in amateur acting, his new
comedy was being rehearsed at the Haymarket,
and there, on May 3, Retired from Business
duly made its appearance before the public.
The play was a keen social satire on humbug
570 DOUGLAS JERROLD
and pretence, but, as some of the earlier ones
had been, was rather conspicuous for the hve-
Uness of its dialogue than for the " story "
it unfolded. The scene is the " Paradise "
of Pumpkinfield, where a number of tradesmen
and merchants have built themselves villas
in which to spend the years of their easy
retirement, some of them as " gentlefolks "
who would obliviate the counter and the count-
ing-house. In Mr. and Mrs. Pennyweight we
have the opposing camps contrasted, he a
frank, bluff man, smugly satisfied with the
prosperity that has allowed him to retire,
but not at all ashamed of the shop from which
he has come; she ready to ape her social
superiors, to fix a prefatory " Fitz " to their
name :
" Pennyweight New card ! Mrs. Pennyweight,
have you the face to ask me to change my name ?
Mrs. Pennyweight. Why not ? When we married,
didn't I do as much for you ? "
The lady is all for their getting in with the
nobs of the neighbourhood — the nob is only
the snob as he sees himself— while her husband
has a fatal readiness for making friends of those
who are not regarded as forming the best
society in the neighbourhood :
" In Pumpkinfield the gentry of previous wholesale
life do not associate with individuals of former retail
existence. The counting-house knows not the shop.
The wholesale merchant never crosses the till. . . . The
till ! That damaging slit — that fatal flaw — makes
DOUGLAS JERROLD 571
an impassable gulf between us. Thus, in Pumpkin-
field there is what we term the billers and the tillers ;
or, in a fuller word the billocvacy and the tillocracy."
It is one of the " tillocracy " who speaks, and
Pennyweight shows his prompt appreciation
of the distinction by paraphrasing it in blunt
fashion :
" Wholesales don't mix with retails ? I think I
see. Raw wool does not speak to halfpenny ball of
worsted — tallow in the cask looks down upon sixes
to the pound, and pig iron turns up its nose at tenpenny
nails."
A pleasant variety of people make up the
mixed society of Pumpkinfield, and a couple
of love stories are provided : firstly, the Penny-
weight's daughter Kitty has, while in school
at Calais, fallen in love with Paul, the son of the
retired Russia merchant Puffins, he who had
divided his neighbours into tillocracy and billo-
cracy, and who had had his house built as
*' a model of the Kremlin, before blown up by
Buonaparte — a brick-and-mortar compliment
to Russia " ; then the niece of an army captain
returns to her uncle having lost her position
as governess because a young gentleman with
prospects had preferred her before the daughter
of the house, and the young gentleman was
nephew of another of the Pumpkinfield worthies
*' retired from business," one who plays as
it were the villain of the piece as a " man of
iron " until, before the final curtain, he relents
and in his own word proves no harder than
572 DOUGLAS JERROLD
butter. There are diverting situations in the
boy and girl romance of Paul and Kitty and
the antagonism of their parents; there is
sentiment in the story of the other couple,
and something of farce in the incidental pursuit
of the widowed pawnbroker Jubilee by his
deceased wife's friend. All ends as stage comedy
so often does, in proving that there has been
as it were much ado about nothing, and
Pennyweight is even forgiven when the inevit-
able revelation comes which shows that in pre-
Pumpkinfield days he had been a retail green-
grocer. In conclusion the Russia merchant
expresses the hope that he is " in every sense-
once and for ever retired from business "
only to move Captain Gunn to the final protest,
the " moral " which in accordance with a
convention often employed, made the play end
with a repetition of its title :
" No ; in every sense, who is ? Life has its duties
ever; none wiser, better, than a manly disregard of
false distinctions, made by ignorance, maintained by
weakness. Resting from the activities of life, we
have yet our daily task — the interchange of simple
thoughts, and gentle doings. When, following those
already passed, we rest beneath the shadow of yon
distant spire, then, and only then, may it be said
of us — ' Retired from Business.' "
Though electric light has long eclipsed " sixes
to the pound " and in other datings the play
may be stamped of the time, yet its satire
is directed against a lasting weakness of men
DOUGLAS JERROLD 573
(and women), and the retired merchants who
refused to recognize the retired retailers of
the mid-nineteenth century have their parallel
in the knights of the early twentieth who would
have the world unaware of the business means
by which they have attained their title. It is
hearty, healthy satire, and was perhaps the
better appreciated because, as was said of
Mrs. Caudle, everybody saw their neighbours
in the characters but never themselves.
A garden-loving sailor provides a goodly
share of the amusing dialogue, as in his treat-
ment of the love-sick boy :
" Gunn. [Aside to Tackle.) Joe, take this youngster
off. He's in love, and I'm busy.
Tackle. Hallo, Master Paul, how's all aboard ?
Paul. Broken-hearted.
Tackle. Is that all ? Bless you, when I was your
age, I was broken-hearted in every port. Come along
with me. I'll mend your heart in such a way you
shan't know it again. Poor fellow !
Paul. {Aside.) He has feeling — he doesn't laugh.
{Aloud.) Ha ! Lieutenant Tackle, you don't know
how beautiful she is !
Tackle. No doubt; like my roses will be, if the
caterpillars will only let 'em. I say — you like a
garden ?
Paul. I'm broken-hearted, and like nothing.
Tackle. You like music ? You shall take a turn
upon my fiddle.
Paul. Not even in music is there medicine for me.
Tackle. Pooh ! the fiddle will do you a deal of good,
besides scaring away the sparrows.
Paul. Ha ! Captain, my brain ! I lay awake all
574 DOUGLAS JERROLD
night, finding ugly faces in the curtains, and — my
brain is scorched. If I could only weep I should be
better.
Tackle. Poor dear fellow ! And should you ?
Paul. I feel it's unmanly. But what I want, what
I should like, is the relief of tears.
Tackle. Should you? The relief of tears? Then
come with me. {Aside.) He shall weed the onions.
{Exit, with Paul.
Gunn. Ha ! Ha ! Poor lad ! I'd be willing to be
quite as unhappy to be quite as young."
In the Captain's closing words the dramatist
might have been thinking of the retort he is
reported to have made to a youth who said,
" Mr. Jerrold, what would you give to be as
young as I am ? " "I would almost be content
to be as foolish ! "
When Retired from Business was produced
the rehearsing of Lytton's comedy Not So Bad
as We Seeyn — of which Jerrold said, " ' Not so
bad as we seem,' but a great deal worse than
we ought to be " — was going actively on, and
with such a company^ — Dickens, Jerrold, Mark
Lemon, John Forster, Frank Stone, R. H.
Home, and Charles Knight, and others —
no doubt went merrily forward. Writing at
the end of April Dickens said, "We rehearse
now at Devonshire House, three days a week,
all day long ! " On May 16, the great " first
night " arrived. A theatre had been set up
in Devonshire House and the auditorium was
thronged with " rank and fashion," the tickets
being five pounds apiece, while Queen Victoria
DOUGLAS JERROLD 575
had sent a hundred guineas for her box. It
was, as one chronicler put it, " the best audience
that could be desired," an audience that having
paid lavishly towards the cause for which the
performance was arranged was prepared to be
entertained by the fare put before it. The
performers distinguished themselves — Jerrold
and Lemon were summed up as " first-rate
actors, almost equal to Dickens " — and all passed
off most satisfactorily, though but for the
presence of mind of Dickens a contretemps
might have marred the general effect. The
story is told by Home :
" Only one little accident occurred. Every gentle-
man of the period (of the play) of any rank wore a
sword ; the manager, therefore, intimated that as
our stage was small, and would be nearly filled up
with side tables and tables in front, in the conspiracy
scene in ' Will's Coffee House,' it would be prudent
and important that the swords of the dramatis personce
should be most carefully considered in passing down
the centre, and round one of the tables in front. At
this table sat the Duke of Middlesex [Frank Stone],
and the Earl of Loftus [Dudley Costello], in a private
and high -treasonous conversation. On the table
were decanters, glasses, plates of fruit, etc. At the
other table, in front, sat Mr. David Fallen [Augustus
Egg], the half -starved Grub Street author and political
pamphleteer, with some bread and cheese, and a
little mug of ale. The eventful moment came, when
Mr. Shadowly Softhead [Douglas Jerrold], Colonel
Flint [R. H. Home], and others, had to pass down the
narrow space in the middle of the stage to be presented
to the Duke of Middlesex, and then, as there was not
576 DOUGLAS JERROLD
room enough to enable them to turn about and retire
up the stage, each one was to pass round the corner
of the table, and make his exit at the left first entrance.
This was done by all with safety, and reasonably good
grace, except by one gentleman, who shall not be
named ; as he rose from his courtly bowing to advance
and pass round, the tip of his jutting-out sword went
rigidly across the surface of the table, and swept off
the whole of the ' properties ' and realities. Decanters,
glasses, grapes, a pineapple, a painted pound cake,
and several fine wooden peaches, rolled pell-mell upon
the stage, and, as usual, made for the footlights. A
considerable ' sensation ' passed over the audience ;
amidst which the Queen (to judge by the shaking of
her handkerchief in front of the royal face) by no
means remained unmoved. But Dickens, who, as Lord
Wilmot, happened to be close in front, with admirable
promptitude and tact called out with a jaunty air of
command, ' Here, drawer ! come and clear away
this wreck ! ' as though the disaster had been a
part of the business of the scene, while the others
on the stage so well managed their by-play that
many of the audience were in some doubt about the
accident. . . .
" Jerrold also (a capital actor in certain parts) was
hardly in his right element. His head and face were
a good illustration of the saying that most people
are like one or another of our ' dumb fellow creatures,'
for he certainly had a remarkable resemblance to
a lion, chiefly for his very large, clear, round, undaunted
straightforward -looking eyes ; the structure of the
forehead; and his rough, unkempt, uplifted flourish
of tawny hair. It was difficult to make such a face
look like the foolish, half -scared, country gentleman,
Mr. Shadowly Softhead; but he enacted the part
very well notwithstanding."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 577
A second performance was given on the
following night, and after the play the Duke
of Devonshire gave a ball and supper to the
performers and audience, and again it is to
Home that we owe a glimpse of Douglas
Jerrold :
'* One of the most amusing things in this ball -and -
supper scene was the state of romantic admiration
into which Jerrold was thrown by the beauty of some
of those who might truly have been designated the
flowers of the nobility. Jerrold moved hastily about,
his large eyes gleaming as if in a walking vision;
and when he suddenly came upon any of the ' Guild '
he uttered glowing and racy ejaculations, at which
some laughed, while others felt disposed to share his
raptures."
Other performances followed the brilliant start
at Devonshire House, and presumably a goodly
sum was gathered for the purpose of launching
the " Guild." In the autumn Dickens wrote
from Clifton, where the play was presented in
the Victoria Rooms, *' Jerrold is in extra-
ordinary force. I don't think I ever knew
him so humorous." Before the " strolling "
was carried to the country several performances
were given in London during the summer at
the Hanover Square Rooms, and the public
response was so considerable that it might
have seemed that the Guild was to be established
on a permanent footing, yet the scheme never
really caught on, and what was finally done
with the funds does not seem to be readily
ascertainable. On the way to Clifton in
VOL. 11. P
578 DOUGLAS JERROLD
November, Dickens visited Walter Savage
Landor at Bath, and it is probable that Jerrold
did so at the same time, for I have a letter
written to him from Landor about a fortnight
later :
« [Bath, November 25, 1861].
" Dear Douglas Jerrold, — I am very delighted
to receive even a few lines from you. Be sure it will
gratify me to [be] one of the Committe[e]. I inclose
a paragraph from the Hereford Times. It contains
a most interesting tale about the family of Kossuth.
You possess the power of dramatizing it. Electrify
the world by giving it this stroke of your genius.
Believe me,
" Sincerely yours,
" W. S. Landor."
It is not often that a writer finds any inspira-
tion in a subject given to him by another, and
the dramatist was not moved to the dramatizing
of the Kossuth anecdote. The " Committee "
was probably one for agitating for the removal
of the stamp duty on newspapers, the paper
duty and the advertisement duty— those " taxes
on knowledge " as Leigh Hunt, I believe, happily
dubbed them, but which Charles Dickens in
a long letter to Macready refused to regard
as such. It was some years before the whole
reform was effected, but time was to show that
Jerrold and his fellow workers for the reform
were right and Dickens and other opposers
wrong.
On the last day of the year Douglas Jerrold's
mother died very suddenly. She had been
J)<)L(JLAs .Jkrroi,i>, 18.52
(From thi painlinrj hii till- Danid Maaw, I'.R.S.A., in the National Portmit Gallcri/)
DOUGLAS JERROLD 579
staying with her daughter, Mrs. WiUiain Robert
Copeland, in Liverpool, and on New Year's
morning one of her grand-daughters going to
wish her good morning and a Happy New Year
found that she had quietly passed away in her
sleep. She had attained the age of seventy-
nine.
In the year 1852 Douglas Jerrold entered
upon the task most memorably associated
with the later years of his life, the task that is
presumably referred to in the following note :
" Thursday.
" My dear Forster, — When we last met I had
given up a project — entertained by me for some week
or two previous — and believed that I could eke out
to meet your wishes. Such project is again renewed —
(it is that of a Sunday newspaper) — and therefore,
with what I am already engaged in, will fully employ
me. I am induced to this venture — first by the belief
that I can carry it out with at least fair success, and
secondly that it affords to me an opportunity of
asserting my own mind (such as it is) without the
annoyance (for I have recently felt it) of having the
endeavour of some years negatived, ' humanized '
away by contradiction and what appears to me gross
inconsistency.
" Yours, my dear Forster, ever truly,
" Douglas Jerrold."
It was in 1842 that Lloyd's Illustrated
Weekly Newspaper had been started by Edward
Lloyd, an enterprising young printer, and for
some years this herald of the cheap popular
580 DOUGLAS JERROLD
press — it was twopence at a time when most of
the newspapers were fivepence and sixpence —
had varying fortunes. After a short time
illustrations were dropped (to be revived later)
and the price was increased to threepence.
Edward Lloyd was not only a pioneer of the
cheap newspaper press, but he was also pioneer
of the system of publicity which regards the
landscape as wonderfully improved by " bold
advertisement." Wishing to extend the popu-
larity of his paper yet further than had been
effected by advertising throughout the country
by bills stuck on rocks and walls and five-barred
gates, and a strong democratic policy, Edward
Lloyd took the bold step of asking Douglas
Jerrold to become its editor. The popularity
of Jerrold 's name as a force on the Liberal
side was considerable, but he did not respond
at all enthusiastically to Lloyd's proposal,
saying that he must think it over and consult
his friends. He did so; and then came a
second interview, when the following dialogue
is said to have taken place between the pro-
prietor and the editor whom he wished to
secure :
" Well, you are not disposed to accept the post ? "
" Scarcely."
" Mr. Jerrold, you are unaware of the terms I was
going to propose."
" Quite."
" A thousand a year."
" Oh ! that puts another complexion on the case.
I'll see you again to-morrow."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 581
The morrow came, and with it the further
interview, when Jerrold agreed to accept the
position if the salary was made " twenty pounds
a week," to which trivial alteration Lloyd
readily agreed. The incident reminds one
of Thackeray's interview with an agent when
he was arranging a series of his lectures, and
the terms had been vaguely spoken of as " fifty
pounds " and " fifty guineas." The agent had
left the presence of the novelist when this
was pointed out to him, and he returned
to settle the matter — " Oh, guineas," said
Thackeray, " decidedly guineas."
As has been said, Lloyd's was already ten
years old when Douglas Jerrold took over the
editorship— but had not apparently any very
high standing at the time, for it was stated
some years later that Jerrold " found it in
the gutter and annexed it to literature." Yet
though it had been started in 1842 and Jerrold's
connection with it did not begin until 1852, I
have seen it stated in a recent work of reference
that the paper was " started under Douglas
Jerrold's editorship." From taking over con-
trol of the journal in 1852 he remained active
editor of the paper up to his death five years
later, and here again it may be said that there
have been strange misstatements made as to
the extent of his " editing " being limited to
the writing of the political leaders. He was
indeed editor in fact as well as in name, and
kept a close look-out over all departments,
especially keeping control of the political,
582 DOUGLAS JERROLD
dramatic and literary matters dealt with.
Among the helpers he enlisted in the service
of Lloyd's may be mentioned Thomas Cooper,
to whom he had earlier given work on Douglas
Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper. Henceforward,
week by week, here as well as in Punch, Jerrold
expressed himself tersely, fancifully, emphatic-
ally, on the social and political matters of the
day. To such topical work his later years
were mostly devoted— there were to be a couple
more comedies and occasional excursions in
the writing of such fanciful things as the writer
could suffuse with a moral purpose, yet it
was mainly as journalist that his later years
were passed.
At the close of February a meeting of the
association for bringing about the repeal of
" the taxes on knowledge " was held, but
Jerrold was unable to attend. He was not,
as we have seen, a platform speaker, and sent
to J. Alfred Novello, treasurer to the move-
ment, a letter which put with delightful
sarcasm some of the points against the ob-
noxious taxation c
" West Lodge, Putney Lower Common,
" February 25, 1852.
" Dear Sir, — Disabled by an accident from personal
attendance at your meeting, I trust I may herein be
permitted to express my heartiest sympathy with its
great social purpose. That the fabric, paper, news-
papers, and advertisements should be taxed by any
Government possessing paternal yearning for the
education of a people defies the argument of reason.
Why not, to help the lame and to aid the short-
DOUGLAS JERROLD 583
sighted, lay a tax upon crutches, and enforce a duty
upon spectacles ?
" I am not aware of the number of professional
writers — of men who hve from pen to mouth — flourish-
ing this day in merry England ; but it appears to me,
and the notion, to a new Chancellor of the Exchequer
(I am happy to say, one of my order — of the goose -
quill, not of the heron's plume) — may have some
significance ; why not enforce a duty upon the very
source and origin of letters ? Why not have a literary
poll-tax, a duty upon books and ' articles ' in their
rawest materials ? Let every author pay for his
licence, poetic or otherwise. This would give a
wholeness of contradiction to a professed desire for
knowledge, when existing with taxation of its material
elements. Thus, the exciseman, beginning with
authors' brains, would descend through rags, and duly
end with paper. This tax upon news is captious and
arbitrary ; arbitrary, I say, for what is not news ?
A noble lord makes a speech : his rays of intelligence,
compressed like Milton's fallen angels, are in a few
black rows of this type; and this is news. And is
not a new book ' news ' ? Let Ovid tell us how
Midas first laid himself down, and — private and con-
fidential— whispered to the reeds, ' I have ears ' ;
and is that not news ? Do many noble lords, even in
Parliament, tell us anything newer ?
" The tax on advertisements is — it is patent — a
tax even upon the industry of the very hardest workers.
Why should the Exchequer waylay the errand boy,
and oppress the maid-of -all -work ? Wherefore should
Mary Ann be made to disburse her eighteenpence at the
Stamp office ere she can show her face in print, wanting
a place, although to the discomfiture of those first-
created Chancellors of the Exchequer — the spiders ?
" In conclusion, I must congratulate the meeting
V
584 DOUGLAS JERROLD
on the advent of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli is the
successful man of letters. He has ink in his veins.
The goosequill — let gold and silver sticks twinkle as
they may — leads the House of Commons. Thus,
I feel confident that the literary instincts of the right
honourable gentleman will give new animation to
the coldness of statesmanship, apt to be numbed
by tightness of red-tape. We are, I know, early
taught to despair of the right honourable gentleman,
because he is allowed to be that smallest of things,
' a wit.' Is arithmetic for ever to be the monopoly
of substantial respectable dulness ? Must it be, that a
Chancellor of the Exchequer, like Portia's portrait,
is only to be found in lead ?
" No, sir, I have a cheerful faith that our new fiscal
minister will, to the confusion of obese dulness, show
his potency over pounds, shillings and pence. The
Exchequer L. S. D. that have hitherto been as the
three witches — ^the weird sisters — stopping us, where -
ever we turned, the right honourable gentleman will
at the least transform into the three Graces, making
them in all their salutations, at home and abroad,
welcome and agreeable. But with respect to the
L. S. D. upon knowledge, he will, I feel confident,
cause at once the weird sisterhood to melt into thin
air; and thus — let the meeting take heart with the
assurance — ^thus will fade and be dissolved the Penny
News Tax — the errand boy and maid-of-all-work's
tax — and the tax on that innocent white thing, the
tax on paper. With this hope I remain,
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
A few months later Jerrold did once more
make a public appearance in person, when he
DOUGLAS JERROLD 585
took the chair at the Anniversary Festival of
the Printers' Pension Corporation — a most
appropriate chairman, for. occupying a position
that during the preceding twenty years had
been occupied by such men as Bulwer Lytton,
the Duke of Cambridge, Charles Dickens, and
Benjamin Disraeli, Jerrold was probably the
first who had been in earlier life a practical
printer.
At the Royal Academy Exhibition of this
year was shown (Sir) Daniel Macnee's portrait
of Douglas Jerrold.^
Some time in 1852 Edmund Jerrold received
an appointment under the Commissariat
Department in Canada, and a little farewell
ball was given by his parents, a short descrip-
tion of which we owe to one of the guests on the
occasion. George Hodder says that Edmund :
" being a young gentleman of somewhat graceful
proportions, and not a little proud to exhibit himself
to the best advantage, wore his uniform on the occa-
sion, and was, of course, a very conspicuous object
during the evening. In short, his glittering appear-
ance was almost calculated to monopolize the attention
of the lady visitors ; and his father, being anxious
that he should distinguish himself in some way beyond
that of displaying his elegant costume, hoped, when his
health was proposed, as it was in due course, after
supper, that he might make a speech which would
be considered ' an honour to the family.' When
Edmund rose, champagne glass in hand, to express
^ This painting is now in the National Portrait Gallery,
in the catalogue of which it is stated erroneously to have
been exhibited at the R,A. in 1853.
586 DOUGLAS JERROLD
his acknowledgements, he seemed so full of confidence,
and presented so bold a front to the assembled guests,
many of whom were standing in clusters around the
room, that his father must have thought he had a
son of whose oratorical powers he should doubtless
one day be proud. The young officer, however, had
scarcely got beyond the words, ' Ladies and Gentlemen,
for the honour you have done me,' ere he suddenly
collapsed and resumed his seat ! Never was astonish-
ment more strangely depicted upon the human
countenance than it was upon that of Jerrold at this
singular fiasco on the part of his hopeful son. He was
literally dumbfounded, but at length he exploded
with a sort of cachinnatory splutter — ^not to call it
laughter — and looking round the room, in doubt as
to where he should fix his gaze, he murmured, ' Well ! '
Amongst the guests on that evening was Dr. Wright,
Jerrold's medical attendant, and that gentleman had
selected as his partner in the dance Miss Mary Jerrold,
our host's youngest daughter. The Doctor being
' more than common tall,' and the young lady being
rather short, but not of very minute proportions,
their combined appearance produced a somewhat ludi-
crous effect as they waltzed round the salon, and
Jerrold, suddenly catching a glimpse of them, ex-
claimed, ' Hallo ! there's a mile dancing with a
milestone ! ' "
It was perhaps at the same party that some
one asked who it was that was dancing with
Mrs. Jerrold. " Oh, a member of the Humane
Society, I should think," replied her husband
laughingly.
During the autumn George Hodder, to whom
we owe that glimpse of the farewell party to
DOUGLAS JERROLD 587
Edmund, was married and received a note
from Jerrold, expressing a hope of seeing him
on his return from the honeymoon in his " bran-
new fetters."
At the beginning of December came another
pubUc meeting — held at St. Martin's Hall,
with Douglas Jerrold in the chair — in further-
ance of the attack on " the taxes on knowledge."
Harriet Martineau had been invited to the
meeting, but her residence at Ambleside in
the distant Lake District made attendance
impossible. Thence she wrote, on notepaper
headed with a pretty vignetted engraving of
her house in accordance with a pleasant fashion
of the time :
"The Knoll, Ambleside, November 29, [1852].
" Dear Mr. Jerrold, — I rather think the ticket
sent me for your meeting on Wednesday next bears
your handwriting. If I am right, thank you for
remembering me. But I can't come, good as is
the will I bear to your object. I am too bus}^ to
move this winter, reprinting an old book, issuing
a new one, and writing a third, besides plenty of
local business. I wonder whether we are going to have
these bad taxes off. I have no faith in any good from
Disraeli, or from any of them, but by shifting
administrations and subjecting each to pressure.
" I hope you are very well. It is almost years since
I heard anything of you. I have been well, happy
and prosperous all that time ; and my place is prettier,
far, than when you saw it. If you will look in upon
it again some day, it will give much pleasure to
" Yours very truly,
" H. Martineau,"
588 DOUGLAS JERROLD
It was probably after taking over the
editorship of Lloyd's that Douglas Jerrold found
the house at Putney too far from town to be
convenient, and looked about for a home from
which Fleet Street was more readily accessible.
On September 28, presumably of this year,
he wrote to a friend : "I am only here for a
week or two when I finally [settle] at 26, Circus
Road, Regent's Park. All my luggage — papers,
etc., etc., at present in warehouse." The
" here " of that note is seen by an engraved
card accompanying it to have been Tudor
Lodge, Albert Street, Mornington Crescent.
The note may be allotted to this year, for
Hodder, as we shall see in the next chapter,
describes Jerrold 's fiftieth birthday celebration
(January 3, 1853) as taking place in the Circus
Road house.
CHAPTER XVIII
" ST. CUPID " AT WINDSOR — GIFT TO KOSSUTH —
A SWISS HOLIDAY—" A HEART OF GOLD "
1853—1854
If in 1852 Douglas Jerrold's position as an
earnest and forceful writer on the Radical
side had been recognized by the offer of the
editorship of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, it was
to receive further recognition during the follow-
ing year when he was invited to stand as Liberal
candidate at the election of a Member of
Parliament for Finsbury. He declined the
proffered honour, considering the duties at
Westminster as incompatible with those of a
man engaged in earning his livelihood profes-
sionally. His view was, I have been told, that
Members should be paid, as it was not possible
for a man who had to work for his living to do
his duty properly by his family and his con-
stituents at the same time. In this, as in
many of the political matters on which he
wrote, he was but half-a-century or so " before
his time."
On January 3, 1853, Douglas Jerrold com-
pleted his fiftieth year, and celebrated the
occasion by giving a dinner to a number of his
most intimate friends, including some " who
589
590 DOUGLAS JERROLD
were better known to friendship than to fame."
To George Hodder, who was present, we owe
a note about the gathering which included
Jerrold's Punch colleagues, and the proprietors
of that paper, Charles Knight, Hepworth Dixon
and E. H. Bailey, R.A.
" Jerrold was in remarkably good health and
spirits, and treated the allusions that were made to
the occasion of the meeting in a tone of hilarity which
rendered the question as to ' ages ' a matter of jocular
rather than sentimental import. The evening was
indeed one of the merriest I ever passed in the society
of Douglas Jerrold, and so gratified was Mr. Baily,
who was the Nestor of the party — being, indeed, in
his seventy-fifth year,^ that he said he should gladly
commemorate the event by making a bust of Jerrold,
and presenting a cast of it to every one present." ^
In the matter of ages it may be said that
Jerrold, in a letter to a friend declared that no
man need ever be more than six-and-twenty.
Early in January 1853 the play which
Douglas Jerrold had mentioned two or three
years earlier as being written for Charles
Kean was in active rehearsal at the Princess's
Theatre, and was duly announced for produc-
^ This is an error of Hodder's, as Edward Hodges
Baily, R.A. (1788-1867) was, at the beginning of 1853,
only in his sixty-fifth year.
2 The bust was duly made, and was generally regarded
as a most successful piece of portraiture. It is now in
the National Portrait Gallery. If, as Hodder says, the
promise of a plaster cast of it for every one present was
not carried out, several such casts were made; one is in
the Punch office, and one is in the possession of the writer.
l)(ir(;i.As .Ikkhold, \H.')'.]
(fi-oin tlu marble ii'st hi/ K. H. Jkuli/, R.A., in the Natioiml Portrait Galltrij)
DOUGLAS JERROLD 591
tion on the 22nd of that month. This play-
was St. Cupid ; or, Dorothy's Fortune, and it
had the unusual honour of being actually
produced a day earlier, when a command
performance was given at Windsor Castle.
On that occasion, it may be noted, the author
was not invited to attend. As in the biography
of EUiston the name of the writer of the play
which restored his fallen fortunes was not
thought worthy of mention, so the existence
of the mere author of the new comedy was not
recognized on the original production of his
play, because that production took place at a
Court where literature was not regarded as
quite presentable.^
On the following night the piece was duly
produced at the Princess's Theatre, and the
welcome given to it by the Court was endorsed
by the people. It is a pretty romantic comedy,
the period of which is that of the Jacobite
plottings of 1715. The scene opens in the
house of Mr. Under-Secretary Zero, whose
nephew-secretary is Sir Valentine May. Zero
is concerned in discovering treasonable corre-
spondence, and in the secretly opened letters
May finds one which piques his curiosity so
that he sets out upon the escapade which ends
in matrimony.
^ The play was already in print, and certain copies
bound in crimson watered silk, and stamped on each
side with the royal arms, were provided for the noble
audience. One of those special copies reached the author,
was given by him to his younger daughter, and by her
to me.
592 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Valentine. Wonderful ! {Aside. Daylight's wasted
upon a man who can see so much better in the dark).
Eh ? (Taking a letter) Surely a woman's hand ?
Zero. No doubt. To fan treason into full blaze,
always fan with a petticoat. Go on.
Valentine. (Reading) ' To Belinda Icebrook ' —
Zero. (Aside. Icebrook? At last — at last!) Ice-
brook ? From whom ?
Valentine. Dorothy — Dorothy — Budd .
Zero. Go on.
Valentine. Sir, it is a woman's letter.
Zero. Sir, treason is of no sex. The axe — an it
could speak — could tell you that.
Valentine. And when I am worthy of the headsman's
trade then I may stoop to this.
Zero. A nice chivalry, perhaps : but all too fine for
me to see it. (Reads) ' This greeting in the name of
St. Cupid.'
Valentine. St. Cupid ! Ha, ha ! Since Cupid has
so many of his old friends in the Calendar, 'tis right, at
last, he's canonized himself. St. Cupid !
Zero. (Reads) ' Sweet Belinda, fortune has found her
eyes, for at last she has found me. And how ? Guess
till your hair grows grey, you'll never know.'
Valentine. And with such a prospect she'll never
try.
Zero. (Reads) ' I'm to have a husband in a week — a
diamond of a man dropt from the clouds.'
Valentine. Only one ? Why not a shower ?
Zero. (Reads) ' He who would pluck a violet must
stoop for it — ^which means, I'm told, that my love
humbles himself to make me his lady. Will you have
any more ? Well then, I'm to be grandmother to a
duke, to die at fourscore, and be buried in silver gilt
and silk velvet.'
Valentine. Very handsome to the worms.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 593
Zero. (Reads) ' All this, dear Belinda, a gipsy's
sold me for sixpence and a battered thimble. These,
wonder at, and bless your Dorothy's fortune.' "
Even in this the suspicious Under-Secretary
scents treason, and goes off determined to
ferret it out. His more sentimental nephew
stays to muse :
" Dorothy — The Lilacs ! And now there are half-
a-dozen faces nodding at me like roses from a bush ;
and which — which is Dorothy's ? Blue eyes, with
love's simplicity ; or subtle tantalizing hazel ? A
cheek like a carnation, or face of peach-like brown ?
Tut ! some buxom wench agog for blindman's buff or
hunt the slipper. Dorothy — The Lilacs ! The syl-
lables sound like a story. And her letter ! Why do
I remember it ? I with no more memory than a fly :
and yet my brain, like so much blotting paper, has
drunk up every word. Dorothy — The Lilacs. I'll
see this linnet in her bush."
Thus resolving he goes to the Lilacs, is
mistaken for the new usher — " an usher that
looks like a gentleman " — and proves, of course,
to be Dorothy's " diamond of a man dropt
from the clouds." Dorothy has another wooer
in the person of her cousin Ensign Bellefleur,
and he is a Jacobite, so that there seems some
justification for the scenting of a plot. He
seeks to make Dorothy aware of his position
and is neatly snubbed for his pains. The
prophesying gipsy, Queen Bee, who had told
Dorothy's fortune—" she can do anything "
says a credulous servant, " a dairyman set
VOL. II. Q
594 DOUGLAS JERROLD
his dog at her, and from that time to this the
dairyman's milk has been three parts water " —
is made of effective use, for Valentine, the
supposed usher, primes her with a " fortune "
to be told the Ensign which shall frighten him
away, and the gipsy repeats it to Dorothy as
Valentine's fortune. Dorothy thus believes
Valentine the traitor, while Valentine is seeking
to warn Bellefleur, so that there is pretty talk-
ing at cross purposes before matters clear up
with the justification of the first part of the
gipsy's prophecy as to Dorothy's fortune.
There was a second play that Jerrold had
written for Kean, and a third contracted for,
but over St. Cupid there was some trouble
between author and manager, and this was to
be heightened later when the second play was
inadequately staged and unfairly treated.
Whatever the trouble may have been, the
dramatist and the manager fell out, and the
former was not backward in exercising his
wit against the latter. Of one of Kean's
Shakespearean revivals Jerrold said that it was
" the usual thing, all scenery and Keanery."
But he was not alone in gibing at the actor-
manager, for in a theatrical journal of the
early 'forties I find the following epigram, " On
Mr. Charles Kean's Macbeth " :
" Mourn not, Macduff, thy wife and children's fall —
Charles Kean has murdered sleep, Macbeth and all."
In May of this year Jerrold made a fresh
appearance on a public platform, the occasion
DOUGLAS JERROLD 595
being a presentation to the Hungarian patriot,
Louis Kossuth. Some time earher Jerrold had
written to the editor of the Daily News :
*' Sir, — It is written in the brief history made
known to us of Kossuth that in an Austrian prison
he was taught Enghsh by the words of the teacher
Shakespeare. An Englishman's blood glows with the
thought that, from the quiver of the immortal Saxon,
Kossuth has furnished himself with those arrowy words
that kindle as they fly — words that are weapons, as
Austria will know. Would it not be a graceful tribute
to the genius of the man who has stirred our nation's
heart to present to him a copy of Shakespeare ?
To do this I would propose a penny subscription.
The large amount of money obtained by these means,
the cost of the work itself being small, might be
expended on the binding of the volumes, and on a
casket to contain them. There are hundreds of
thousands of Englishmen who would rejoice thus to
endeavour t.o manifest their gratitude to Kossuth, for
the glorious words he has uttered among us — words
that have been as pulses to the nation.
" Douglas Jerrold."
The project thus started was carried out
successfully^ — pennies came in from men and
women of all classes, from all parts of the coun-
try, and when it was found that the sum
collected was more than enough for the pur-
chase of the volumes and for the binding of
them handsomely, then it occurred to Jerrold
that a suitable casket would be a model of
Shakespeare's birthplace. This was beauti-
fully made of inlaid woods, and when all
596 DOUGLAS JERROLD
was completed Jerrold took almost a boyish
delight in showing the treasure to his friends.
Then, on May 8, came the occasion for
the presentation of the souvenir to Kossuth.
The scene was the London Tavern, where a
crowded audience gathered to hear the great
Hungarian, Lord Dudley Stuart occupying the
chair. It devolved upon Jerrold to make the
actual presentation, when once more he had
to combat that almost overwhelming nervous-
ness which attacked him on such occasions.
His son has described the scene : " I remember
very vividly my father's excited manner when
he was perched upon a chair, amid a storm of
applause, his hair flowing wildly about him, his
eyes starting, and his arms moving spasmodically.
He bowed and bowed, almost entreatingly,
as though he begged the audience not to over-
whelm his powers." At length the applause
died down, and with an effort only those who
can never overcome the nervousness of speaking
in public will appreciate he delivered his speech,
telling of the way in which the gift had been
raised, and paying his tribute to the man to
whom it was being presented :
" Most unaffectedly do I wish that the duty imposed
by the noble chairman on my feeble and unpractised
powers had been laid upon any other individual more
equal — ^he could not be less — ^to the due fulfilment of
this difficult, but withal most grateful task. Sir
[turning to Kossuth], when it became known to Eng-
lishmen, already stirred, animated by your consum-
mate mastery of their noble language — when it became
DOUGLAS JERROLD 597
known to them that you had obtained that ' sovereign
sway and masterdom ' of English speech from long
study of the page of Shakespeare — when it was known
that your captivity had been lightened by the lesson
you have since so nobly set yourself, by the achiev-
ment of the lesson you have since so often, so faith-
fully, and so triumphantly repeated to admiring
thousands — when this was kno^\Ti, your words, most
potent in themselves, had to Englishmen a deeper
meaning and a sweeter music ; for they could not but
hear, in the utterance of the pupil, an echo of his
teacher — of the world's teacher — their own Shake-
speare. It was then proposed to pay you a tribute
at once thankful and sympathetic. It was then
proposed to offer for your acceptance a copy of the
works of Shakespeare ; and this is the result — a copy
of the works of Shakespeare enclosed in a case
modelled after the house in which Shakespeare first
saw the light. The case bears the inscription —
' Purchased with 9,215 pence, subscribed by English-
men and women as a tribute to Louis Kossuth, who
achieved his noble mastery of the English language, to
be exercised in the noblest cause, from the page of
Shakespeare.' Sir, it is my faith that Shakespeare
himself, whose written sympathies, like the horizon,
circle the earth — it is my faith that Shakespeare
himself maj^ happily smile a benign, approving smile
upon this small tribute, alike honourable to the many
who give, as to the one who receives the gift. For,
in the poet's own words —
" ' Never anything can be amiss
When humbleness and duty tender it.'
And these pennies — subscribed by men and women
of almost all conditions, these pennies are so many
598 DOUGLAS JERROLD
acknowledgements of your wondrous eloquence — are
so many tributes to the genius that, seeking our
language at the ' pure well of English undefiled,' has
enabled you to pour it forth in a continuous stream
of freshness and of beauty. There is not a penny of
the thousands embodied here that is not the pulse of
an English heart, sympathetically throbbing to your
powers of English utterance. Very curious would it
be to consider the social history, the household
history, of many of these pennies ; for among them
are offerings of men of the highest genius, as of men
whose human story is the story of daily labour —
whose social dignity is the dignity of daily work.
Represented by a hundred and twenty pennies, are
here a hundred and twenty pilots, sailors and fisher-
men of Holy Island. And it is to men such as these
that your name has been musical at the fireside — has
come a word of strength and strange delight over the
English sea. Sir, it would be a long, and, with my
doing, an especially tedious endeavour, to attempt
even partially to individualize the penny tributes of
which this testimonial is the product. But here it is,
an enduring sympathetic record of your glorious
task. Sympathetic, I say, for dull and sluggish must
be the imagination that cannot, in some sort, follow
you in the Shakespearean self-schooling of your
captivity — that cannot rejoice with you, the rejoicing
scholar, as from the thick and cumbrous shroud of
foreign words come forth a spiritual beauty, an
immortal loveliness, to be thenceforth a part of your
spiritual nature. It is, I say, impossible not to be
glad with you, the Shakespearean pupil, as one by one
you made not the acquaintance, but the lifelong
friendship, of the men and women of our immortal
Shakespeare. It is impossible not to feel the triumph
with you as all his mighty creations ceased to be
DOUGLAS JERROLD 599
golden shadows, half-guessed mysteries, standing
revealed as great proportions, solemn truths. It is
impossible, when at length the whole grandeur of our
poet, like an eastern sunrise, broke upon you, not to
sympathize with the flush, the thrill of triumph that
possessed you — having mastered Shakespeare. It
may be a rapture almost as full, almost as deep,
almost as penetrating as that you felt when first you
beat the Austrians. It is impossible not to sympathize
with you in your hours of pupilage when you studied
the language of our poet ; it is equally impossible for
free Englishmen not to admire and thank you for the
glorious use you have made of a glorious weapon.
Sir, on the part of thousands, I herewith present to
you this testimonial, in tribute of their admiration,
their sympathies, their best wishes. And, sir, hoping,
believing, knowing that the day will come when
you shall sit again at your own fireside in your own
liberated Hungary, we further hope that sometimes
turning the leaves of these word-wealthy volumes,
you will think of Englishmen as of a people who had
for you and for your cause the warmest admiration
and deepest sympathy; and, animated by these
feelings, resented with scorn, almost unutterable, the
dastard attempts to slander and defame you.
The day will come — for it is to doubt the solemn
purposes and divine ends of human nature to doubt
it — ^the day will come when the darkness that now
benights the greater part of Continental Europe will
be rolled away, dispersed by the light of liberty, like
some suffocating fog. The day will come when in
France men shall re -inherit the right of speech. The
day will come when in Austria men shall take some
other lesson from their rulers but the stick; and the
day will come when in Italy the temporal power of
the pope — that red plague upon the brightest spot of
600 DOUGLAS JERROLD
God's earth — will have passed away like a spent
pestilence. That day must and will come. Mean-
while, sir, we wish you all compatible happiness, all
tranquillity, all peaceful enjoyment of the sacred
rights of private life in England — in this England that
still denounces the political dictation of a foreign
tyrant, as heretofore she has denounced and defied
his armed aggressions ; for to submit to the one is to
invite the other."
When I was in Budapest three or four years
ago I had the pleasure of meeting M. Francis
Kossuth, the son of the great Hungarian patriot,
himself a distinguished politician and amateur
of various arts. I had hoped to have an oppor-
tunity of seeing the present made by those
thousands of English pennies more than half-a-
century earlier, but learned from M. Kossuth
that the casket and books were among the
many relics of his father which he had given to
the Hungarian Museum, relics which were still
locked up and would not be available until
after his (the donor's) death.
Among the writers whom Douglas Jerrold
had welcomed on his Weekly Newspaper was
Mrs. Caroline Chisholm, " the Emigrants'
Friend," who after living in the East for some
years moved with her husband in search of
health to Australia, and there began the useful
work of aiding newly arrived female colonists.
In 1846, after five years of such work, Mrs.
Chisholm had returned to England, where she
continued the work by assisting women who were
contemplating emigration to Australia. She
DOUGLAS JERROLD 601
wrote on this subject in Jerrold's paper. In
1853, she was arranging to return to AustraHa
in the following spring, and it was evidently in
reply to a letter expressing a wish to be one of
those who should speed the parting guest that
she wrote to Jerrold as follows :
" Bell Buildings, November 2, 1853.
" Dear Mr. Jerrold, — I am pleased to find that
you propose to pay me a farewell visit on board ; as my
first friend connected with the London Press such an
intimation is particularly gratifying to me and you
may depend upon having full notice. I also hope to
have the pleasure of seeing you before then.
" Yours sincerely,
" Caroline Chisholm.
" I am going to spend a few days at Edinburgh,
and shall be there on Monday the 21st.
"C. C."
Mrs. Chisholm duly set out for Australia,
and for a dozen years continued her useful
work in the colony.
In January 1854 Lloyd's dealt in sarcastic
fashion with the establishment of a soup
kitchen for the poor in Drury Lane, the sugges-
tion being, to put it bluntly, that the manager
E. T. Smith and the leading actor Giistavus
Vaughan Brooke were utilizing philanthropy
for purposes of advertisement. E. T. Smith
concocted a reply to this article in the form of
a letter to Douglas Jerrold, and had it printed
on slips which were, I assume, distributed to
persons attending the performances at Drury
Lane. The letter was a somewhat bludgeon-
602 DOUGLAS JERROLD
like attack in which Jerrold was summed up as
" a queer and querulous man at war with human
nature " — a summing up ridiculous to those
who really knew him — and the very temper of
the letter suggests a vindictiveness stung to re-
taliation by the truth of the offending article.
The letter closed with :
" You inquire ' Where is the flood of philanthropy
to stop ? ' I answer your question — ^with yourself.
Your energies have been devoted (in the article I
reply to) to dam the stream — to stay the current of
benevolence, and you offer nothing to the poor in its
place. Satanized, indeed, must be the mind of that
man who heaps abuse upon those whose only offence
is giving away soup, bread and blankets to the poor,
and sending donations to the poor-boxes of police
courts during a winter of unusual and obstinate
severity. You are fortunate in having a journal at
your command ; for you can attack those who have
not the same vehicle of response, almost with impu-
nity. Besides, too, your age is in your favour; in
the words of Samuel Johnson, it brings you one
privilege, namely, that of being insolent and super-
cilious without punishment."
It may well be wondered when " the privilege
of age " begins, for Douglas Jerrold was but
just fifty-one at the time, though with his
body bent by recurring attacks of rheumatism,
and his long hair rapidly greying, he appeared
far older than he actually was.
During this year, too, Jerrold's views as
expressed in Lloyd's were to move another who
had but an imperfect sympathy with him to
DOUGLAS JERROLD 603
expostulation, for there was published in Edin-
burgh in the form of a pamphlet " The Key to
the Sabbath Question : or, a Letter to Douglas
Jerrold, Esq. on Sabbath Observance. By a
Biblical Economist." In this Jerrold was ad-
dressed as " one of the ablest of those Literary
Men and Newspaper Editors, who support and
propagate loose and inaccurate views of the
Sabbath." The leading article to which the
Biblical Economist took exception had asso-
ciated excessive whiskey drinking in Scotland
with the Scottish strict observance of the
Lord's Day, and the Biblical Economist pointed
out that the whiskey drinkers were to be found
among those who had fallen from grace in the
matter of Sabbath observance. It was on the
whole, however, a temperate letter, and it
closed with the somewhat ludicrous wish that
the " still more eminent " name of Douglas
Jerrold might be added as hero to that of the
late Sir Andrew Agnew ! The wish was ludi-
crous in that to Jerrold, Thomas Hood, and
others. Sir Andrew stood as the very type of
narrowness and sectarian intolerance.
Despite Sabbatarians and others who dis-
agreed with Douglas Jerrold's views and the
forceful emphasis with which those views were
expressed, Lloyd's went on increasing in popu-
larity and influence. Writing to Percival Leigh
from Paris in April of this year, Thackeray bore
testimony to the fact, for referring to a meeting
with the Rev. Francis Mahony, known to letters
as " Father Prout," he said :
604 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" F. P. was telling me of the immense rise of
Lloyd's Newspaper, under the Douglas, by Jupiter, I
am very glad to hear it. Please the gods D. J. will
lay by a little money. What's the business of us
fathers of families but that? When we are in the
domus exilis Plutonia, we shall have a consolation in
that glum limbo by thinking we have left some
bread behind for our young ones here under the sun."
In the summer of this year Douglas Jerrold
gratified that taste for foreign travel which
he always possessed, but which he had not
been able to indulge beyond repeated visits to
Paris or the French coast, with the exception
of an early trip up the Rhine with a friend, a
trip of which I have found but the bare mention.
He had not been able to respond to Charles
Dickens's cordial invitation to Italy of some
years earlier, but now an enthusiastic young
friend, William Hepworth Dixon, planned a
trip to Switzerland, and Jerrold delightedly
joined with him. In August, the two friends
and their wives set out, and from Geneva
Jerrold wrote to his eldest son of their safe
arrival by a " wondrously beautiful " route, of
which, however, we learn more in the letters
that Hepworth Dixon wrote to his eldest son,
Willie, who was Douglas Jerrold's godson.
These bright immediate comments not only tell
of the country through which the travellers
passed, but also help us to reahze the zest for
healthy enjoyment possessed by Jerrold :
''Dieppe, August 18, 1854.— A kiss— good-bye-
grind — whiz — phiz, and we land in Dieppe safe and
DOUGLAS JERROLD 605
well ! We met Godpapa, Godmamma, IVIiss Polly,
and Tom at the station, all in good time. I got
everything ship-shape, and took charge of the common
purse (for you must know that Godpapa, when on his
travels, spends his money like his wit, as if he had
more gold and precious gems than ever glistened in
Aladdin's cave), and away we sped through the bright
sunshine, merry and laughing, till we came to the
sea, when Master Tom put on a grave face, for his
stomach does not like salt water, and, hiding himself
behind a horse-box, was seen of us no more for five
long hours. Godpapa is a capital sailor, as you know,
from the old boating days at Rocklands ; and we
joked, and smoked, and kept the ladies brisk, in spite
of Mamma's white cheeks and Miss Polly's imploring
eyes. So we got to Dieppe just at sundown, to find
the hotels crowded for the races — always a droll sort
of thing in France, like a review in Hyde Park, or a
regatta in Venice, or a jubilee at Munich, or a anything
else that has no meaning and much absurdity; so,
instead of going to a nice hotel fronting the sea, as we
ought to have done, we go to M — 's house on the port,
with a commanding stench in front and rear, because
Godpapa had been there once before, and had been
excessively uncomfortable ! After a bad supper
(which, as the meat and wines were French, we
enjoyed, smacking our lips over the thin Macon as
though it had been Moet's), we are carried over the
open sewers a street or two, and up dark passages,
and along creaking wooden galleries, built in the day of
Henri Quatre and Madame Longueville, to bed — in
such a tiny bed, not too big for Queen Mab to sleep in! —
in rooms without carpets, candlesticks, or water-basins,
but with windows looking into our neighbours' rooms,
and kindly allowing them a peep into ours. . . .
" Fontainehleau, August 22. — After four hot days in
606 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Paris we are cooling in the prettiest sort of country
house on the edge of the great forest of Fontainebleau,
into which we drive and ramble, losing ourselves in its
magnificent avenues of chestnuts and poplars. . . .
Godpapa has a great love for trees, and woods, and
gardens ; indeed, we cannot tell if he loves even books
better than flowers, of which he knows all the names,
English and Latin, and all the verses that have ever
been written about them ; so we pass under the
lacing branches, and chat, and smoke and laugh. . . .
We did not have very much laughing in Paris, except
over a dinner that M — undertook to ride down and
order for us in the Bois de Boulogne, all in the true
French style, and in which there was not one dish
that anybody could eat ! We had great fun with him,
plaguing him about his taste in the fine arts, and all
that. Paris we left rather hastily; for the cholera is
terrible, and we are told that thirty thousand people
have already died there, and it is now raging more
than ever. Godpapa and I coming home from the
bath yesterday, saw men carrying a dead body out,
and when we got to our own hotel found a coffin in the
doorway, which made him very sick; so we eat little
breakfast, but ran out, bought some linen trousers,
straw hats (mine is a duck of a hat, and makes God-
papa jealous !) and away by the noon train to Fon-
tainebleau, where we have seen the forest — a real old
forest like Epping, which you have seen — only of
course, it is a French Epping, and therefore straight
and stiff, and the roads through it very windy — and the
court where Napoleon bade adieu to his old guard.
We have thrown cake to the carp, those blind old
Belisarius fish in harlequin coats, said to have rings
in their noses, put through them in the days of
Francis I, and, therefore, the only living remnants
of the old times of France. . . .
DOUGLAS JERROLD 607
" Aix in Savoy, August 25. — What a ride and a sail,
and how tired we are ! Godpapa done up and gone to
bed, although we have tumblers with a band under
the window ! Mamma laid down quite shaken.
When we left Fontainebleau the heat was like furnace
heat, and the train was stifling, the wasps irritating,
and the people dismal about cholera ; but what
glorious sweeps of vineyards, and what glorious
oleanders, pomegranates and dahlias. Godpapa had
never seen a vineyard before, nor a pomegranate
blossoming in the open air ; and he raved all day over
this new beauty, and wanted to stop at all the pretty
places — such as Tonnerre, Nuits, St. Julien. ' There,'
he cried, ' is Tonnerre ! My God, what a landscape !
let us stay here for a day or two. Give me the Murray
— let me see, Tonnerre — ha ! — dull town — steep slope —
Marguerite of Burgundy — desolated by cholera in '32
— that will do.' And on we slid past Dijon, Chalons,
Macon, tasting the wines, and munching grapes, and
sometimes tarts with live wasps in them ! and so in
the late hours to Lyons, tired to death, to face the
long delay at the station, the hauling over of luggage,
and the impatience of the ladies, who don't like their
gear to be thumped and poked and administered.
' Anything to declare ? ' asks a pompous gentleman, all
button and tobacco. ' Yes,' says Godpapa, who will
have his bit of fun ; ' a live elephant — take care ! '
Riding into Lyons on a sultry night is like wriggling
into a mouldy melon, stuffed with strong onions and
cheese; and we looked at each other's turned-up
noses, and thought of the fresh lakes and breezy Alps.
' Could you send and take places for us in to-morrow's
diligence for Geneva ? ' says Godpapa to Mr. Glover,
landlord of the Hotel de I'Univers, where we tumbled
in at midnight. ' All the places taken for three days,'
tartly answers Glover. ' Any other conveyance ? '
608 DOUGLAS JERROLD
' Only the river.' ' Only ! What river ? ' ' Rh6ne to
Aix in Savoy, there catch Chambery diligence to
Geneva.' So we dropped into bed half -dressed —
dosed an hour — and off again (after paying such a
bill !) — Mamma very tired and chill in the dull morn-
ing air — and at four o'clock flung off the Rhone bank,
and, with our faces to the Alps and the rising sun,
dodged, swung and leaped against the rapid current,
between heights, crowned, like the Rhine, with ruined
convents and castles, and through broad reaches,
and through picturesque old towns — a long, sweet, and
merry day. (P.S. — Mr. Punch will certainly hear of
Mr. Glover's merits.) At sundown we entered Lago
Borghetto, and arrived at Aix by dusk, to find the
little town crammed, the best hotel full, the street
hot with sulphur, and noisy with soldiers, boatmen,
ostlers, guides and visitors — most of these last
Italians flying from their own places in fear. At
last we got to an hotel — very bad and dirty — both
the ladies knocked up. . . .
" Annecy, August 28. — Sick with sulphur, lungs full
of steam, and poisoned with sour food, we escaped
from Aix this morning by a nice little trick. Our
landlord, unable to catch four live English every day,
and finding our society pleasant and profitable, as
he could charge us for dinners we never touched, told
us over-night there were no places to be got for a
week in the Chambery diligence, nor a single horse
to be hired for posting. So Godpapa goes down
before breakfast, makes a long face, and whispers to
him that he fears one of the ladies is seized with
cholera ! The honest landlord suddenly recollects
that horses and a very nice carriage may be got, and
cheap too ! Done, done ! As we step in, a funeral
procession, with priests and singing boys and candles,
drones past the door, and we drive away in a slight
DOUGLAS JERROLD 609
shower, out of the deep sulphurous valley, with
Italian cottages and real Italian vines, trained up the
sides of houses, and up branches of apple trees. Very
merrily we ride, Godpapa crowing and singing, and
marking down every pretty spot to come to again, and
spend a summer in it. He has laid out thirty or
forty summers already, so you see he means to live
for ever, as we all hope he may. And here we are in
a darling old town, with such a lovely lake under our
window, and such a wall of mountain above it, and
such queer old houses close by — houses like those in
Chester, with shady arches, and shops under them,
as in old Italian cities, where people strive with all
their arts to keep sunshine out ! Here we eat lotte,
and drink to Rousseau and Madame de Warens, and
order our carriage and start for Geneva
" Geneva, August 29. — Wliat a lovely drive over the
mountains ! what a road full of pictures ! You
should have seen us gay young fellows trudging on
before the carriage, dropping stones over the great
bridge at La Caille, jabbering with the peasants on
the road, clambering over rocks to catch glimpses of
famous cascades, or listening to the sweet pine music
in the lonely evening places. In one village we left
the ladies, resting the tired horses, and pushed a mile
or two ahead, and stopped to see the sun set over a
high hill, when a troop of girls came up, crowing and
shouting, with pumpkins on their heads large enough
for Cinderella's coach-and-six to crack out of — lithe
graceful girls ; but we could not tell a word they said,
though they looked as if they thought we had sprung
out of the ground : and they passed on laughing until
they met the ladies, when we could hear them set
up a great shout. About twelve at night we rattled
into Geneva, to find every house chock full. ' If
Monsieur will sleep in his fiacre, perhaps we can find
VOL. II. »
610 DOUGLAS JERROLD
a bed for him to-morrow or next day,' says the land-
lord of Des Bergues to Godpa. We drive to the Ecu,
Couronne, Angleterre, Balance. All oozing with life.
Not a coal-cellar for coin or love. Naples, Geneva,
Rome, Turin — all seem now at Geneva — princes,
dancers, painters, conspirators, all flying from cholera.
At last we hear of rooms ; we drive to them, and under
the town gate an ancient, dirty and dismal Swiss
inn, the landlady of which is rushing about, pulling
people out of bed to make way for us — ^for the English
lords and ladies ! Two rooms cleared and clean linen
brought, together with brandy and water. As we
drink and laugh, Godpa spies a door in the room not
before noticed, and, trying it, opens on a monk in
bed ! ' Ho ! ho ! Cannot this door be locked ? '
' No,' says the landlady, ' else how will the poor
padre come out ? ' He had actually no way in or out
except through our bedroom. A row, an expostula-
tion, a threat of leaving, and the wretch was dug out
of his sleep, bundled off, his room hired for peace's
sake, and we fell to rest. In Switzerland, the inn-
keepers are mostly magistrates, and the church has
no chance with Boniface when milord objects to the
nuisance. . . .
" Geneva, Sept. 4. — Godpa and I have been up and
down and over the lake everywhere ; to Ferney, where
Voltaire lived, and Mamma has gathered you splendid
fir bobs ; to Coppet, where Bayle lived ; to Lausanne,
where Gibbon lived ; to Clarens, where Rousseau
fixed the story of Julie and St. Preux; to Coligny,
where Milton lived and where Byron had a house, in
which he wrote poems, and from which he saw the
live thunder leap among the peaks of Jura. The
ladies walked with us to Coligny, where we did not
feel sentimental or see any live thunder but were very
thirsty and played skittles, and drank some bad
DOUGLAS JERROLD 611
claret. We have been to Chillon too, and walked in
the worn steps of Bonnevard and watched the green
light on the roof, and heard the deep drone of the
water outside the wall, and refused to scratch our
names on the pillars. . . . Take care to address your
letters in a very plain hand. There is a paper pub-
lished in Geneva giving lists of all strangers, and this
is the way the world is informed of the arrival of two
gentlemen you know —
' M. Stiss worth.
M. Douglar.'
So no wonder if the post office cannot always find
our letters ! Of course this is too good a jest to spoil ;
so we leave the rectification to history. Mamma is not
very well, though full of spirits ; and Godpa begins
to fidget about a box of cholera pills, given him
before we started by your good friend, Erasmus
Wilson, and which Godpapa told him we should
never take unless we are bound. This morning he
ran out before breakfast (for we are now in a very
pleasant hotel, the Angleterre, and really can break-
fast), and came back in a new straw hat — best Leghorn.
The ladies twigged him, and nudged me not to see it.
So he began to talk about hats — but mum ! At last
he got angry at our blindness, and put his new straw
hat on the table, when we all laughed outright, and
he most of any. Here's the William Tell snorting
under our window : off to Lausanne !
" Lausanne, Sept. 5. — Fresh air and thin brandy
and water keep us pretty well in the midst of a good
deal of sickness, and still more alarm. We have the
first all day, and a little of the other at night, so that
Godpapa calls this trip our Brandy and Waterloo !
What a delightful sail on the lake, and what a red
nose Godpa has got ! . . . We are kept here (in
612 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Freiburg, and thank heaven for it) by a blunder of the
diligence man, who has carried off our luggage to
Berne, and left us behind. And we enjoyed such a
treat in the church, where the organ has played us a
dream, a storm, an earthquake and all kinds of
wonderful and difficult things in music, at which poor
Godpa cried very much, for you must know he is very
sensitive to sweet sounds. But I must tell you a bit
of fun, at which the ladies have not yet done laughing.
Godpa says to me in German, which they don't
understand, ' Let's have a choice bottle of hermitage
for dinner ; ' and, pretending it is only the common
country wine we all drink and are merry. But
hermitage is in smaller bottles than table wine, so
Godpa says to the landlord, ' These are very small.'
' Ha ! ' cries Boniface, ' I perceive — it is all a mistake.
This is a wrong flask; you must have another.' So
the ladies look and wonder, and Godpa persuades
them that the landlord is going to give them a second
bottle. So don't they drink and enjoy it ! And we
sit laughing on the terrace over the Saarine till the
golden light fades on the Alp heads, and the stars
twinkle out, and silence sweeps up the great valley,
hushing, as it were, the coursing river down below. . . .
" Berne, Sept. 7. — Ten miles through the forest
Godpa and I walked this morning, he, strong and lithe
as a chamois, singing and whistling as we stepped
along over the green turf, now catching the cry of a
milkmaid, now the caw-caw of a rook, and now the
crash of a tree. A breezy and enchanting mountain
road, on which we saw the sun rise purple, pink and
gold. An Irish lady, long Frenchified, occupied a
fifth seat in the rotonde — a Miss O'Dogherty, thin,
rouged, and fifty — who amused us by her strange
knowledge and still stranger ignorance. ' Oh, madam !
and you live in London ? And you see the Queen
DOUGLAS JERROLD 613
sometimes ? And how does she dress ? And has she
not blue eyes ? ' As we rode through a pass that
made Godpa jump for joy, she simpers, ' Ha, yes ! it
it very pretty — sweetly pretty; it is quoite rural.'
. . . Godpa has bought you a stone bear. Berne,
you remember, is the paradise of bears. Bears in
wood, and bears in wax — bears in marble, and bears
in bronze — bears on coins and bears on church -
towers — live bears in the Ditch and dead bears in the
museum — bears on the cathedral walls, bears on the
public fountains, bears in the shop windows, bears on
the town gates — bears everywhere, even in our
portmanteaus. In the great thoroughfare is a bear
in armour, champion of the city. . . . We go to
Lucerne, the Rigi, Zug, and Zurich, on our way to
Germany,
" Zurich, Sept. 9. — The heat is certainly great,
and v/e feel loth to leave our haven on the lake, the
gardens that we have learnt to love so much, and
the evening boat and song that are sweeter still. The
old library here makes a charming noon -day lounge,
where we have read over lots of valuable letters — the
nicest reading-room in the world, always excepting the
ducal library in Venice, which, like Venice itself, is
beyond comparison. (P.S. — By this time Godpa has
a list of a hundred places to spend his future summers
in ! Hurrah !) To-morrow we leave for Bale and
Heidelberg, and shall drop slowly down the Rhine,
sleeping at Bingen, Bonn, Cologne, and so to Aix,
Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend. Ten days
more will see us home. I got your letters at Lucerne,
where Godpa also found his letters from INIr. Knight.
We find the telegraphic words were delivered in Fleet
Street, nine minutes after they were given in at
Geneva. Godpa seemed awe-struck. Of course he
knew, as everybody knows, that the lightning carries
614 DOUGLAS JERROLD
fast ; but he had never sent a telegraph before in his
life ; and this whispering over Alps, lakes, and seas,
suddenly brought home to him, struck him like a
blow.
" Bale, Sept. 10.— What a bill to pay in Zurich !
Godpa says they charged ten francs a day for listening
to my German. He won't speak one word; not that
he cannot, for he knows the language well enough,
but he is lazy and likes to have no trouble; and
because I rattle away and get things done, without
much respect for genders and accusatives, he sits and
criticizes. Naughty old boy ! You must scold him
for me."
On October 9, 1854, there was produced at
the Princess's Theatre the last of Douglas
Jerrold's long series of writings for the stage,
in the shape of a three-act drama entitled A
Heart of Gold. The idea of the play was sug-
gested by an anecdote told in Hazlitt's Tahle-
Talk of a poor woman at Plymouth, who,
thinking herself dying, gave all her little belong-
ings to friends and relations about her— and they
promptly carried off the gifts, and left the woman
to her fate. She unexpectedly recovered, but
could not regain the things which she had
given away. The time of the play is the mid-
eighteenth century, and the scenes are laid in
an Essex village and an inn on London Bridge.
Maude Nutbrown, the daughter of a worldly-
wise farmer, is wooed by the moneyed John
Dymond, and the youthful but penniless Pierce
Thanet— her father favouring the former while
she, of course, loves the latter. Dymond owes
DOUGLAS JERROLD 615
a debt of gratitude to the memory of Pierce's
father, and beheving himself dying, presents
the young man with his wealth, a thousand
guineas ; and advises him to " grasp gold as the
drowning hand grasps at a spar," saying that
*' he who has guineas for his subjects is the king
of men." The possession of this money makes
Nut brown's consent assured, but when the
village is preparing for Dymond's funeral and
for the wedding, the supposed dead man returns
— it has been but a trance ; "It took three
doctors to believe him alive again." Pierce,
remembering too well the lesson that accom-
panied the gift of the gold, refuses to render it
up, and Maude will therefore have nothing to do
with him, and it appears that Dymond's affec-
tion is to be rewarded, but the girl loving Pierce,
cannot bring herself to a loveless marriage,
feeling that it would be a wrong to the man she
wedded. Pierce then secretly places the gold
in Dymond's cottage, having learned that the
gift of it was not, as he had supposed, an act of
restitution on Dymond's part. It is a simple
romantic drama, with clean-cut and telling
dialogue, and some lively humour in the talk
between Molly Dingle, the china-smashing ser-
vant (" that girl would break the Bank of
England if she put her hand on it "), and Michael-
mas, the man who had been found a baby waif
and dreams of belonging to some noble family
owing to the treasured silver spoon that was
found with him. Here is a scrap of the dialogue
between Molly and Michaelmas, which includes
616 DOUGLAS JERROLD
some delightfully true sayings on the relations
of men and women, and illustrates what was
sometimes said to be a defect of Jerrold's work
as dramatist, the way in which even the hum-
blest characters were made to express them-
selves with their creator's own nimbleness of
conversational wit :
" Molly. I find, for a London young woman, the
country's the place to pick husbands ! Thick as
mushrooms !
Michaelmas. What? Young Straddle of Parsley
Farm — him you met last night at Nutbrown's — you
think he'll be a mushroom, do you ?
Molly. My thoughts is my own property. But now
a farm -life for me, Michael. I've found it out — I've
a gift for eggs and butter.
Michaelmas. And if eggs don't fare better at your
hands than cups and sarcers, and —
Molly. What ! you throw my broken crockery in
my face ? Well, that's so like a man to a poor weak
woman.
Michaelmas. Weak woman ! See how your weak-
ness knocks down our strength ! There's Maude
Nutbrown ! I only hope she won't break Pierce's
heart !
Molly. A woman break a man's heart ! Well, that's
a bit of stone -ware would beat even me.
Michaelmas. After all, Maude will never marry
Master Dymond. She couldn't do it.
Molly. You don't know us. When our blood's
up, we'd marry anybody. But you're not going,
Michaelmas ?
Michaelmas. I've told you— Master Pierce is off to
London. I go with him. You can stop, you know,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 617
and keep Master Dymond's house. I adore the
town. You're given to cows and a common — I was
made for Hyde Park. You'll marry a farmer, and
rear his goslings.
Molly. Goslings, sir ! And why should they be
goslings ?
M'chaelmas. Whilst on second thoughts I shall
remain as I am, and not marry at all. {Aside. I
know her — she'll never stop.) Well, good-bye, MollJ^
Molly. {Aside. I know him better than myself —
he'll never leave me.) Good-bye, Michaelmas.
Michaelmas. Ha ! ha ! We may meet in London.
Molly. {Aside. Why, he's laughing.) I don't see
how.
Michaelmas. Oh, yes ; you'll be coming up with
your pigs.
Molly. Shall I ? Then I shan't drive 'em to your
market, I can tell you."
Despite its tender story, its bright dialogue,
and its wholesome purpose, A Heart of Gold
did not, as the modern phrase has it, " catch
on." The play was apparently badly cast,
for the author declared that Maude Nut-
brown (Miss Heath, afterwards Mrs. Wilson
Barrett) was " a graceful exception " to the
general bad acting of the piece; the grievance
which he had against Kean was heightened, and
he determined to bid farewell to the stage. The
story of the play's production was given by
its author in the following explanation pub-
lished in Lloyd^s :
" For obvious reasons A Heart of Gold is not a
subject for criticism in this journal. A few facts,
618 DOUGLAS JERROLD
however, may be given by the author in this his
farewell to all dramatic doings. The piece was
written some four years since at the solicitation of
Mr. Charles Kean, and duly paid for. The hero and
heroine were to be acted by himself and Mrs. Charles
Kean. They were, in fact, written to be so acted.
Subsequently, however, Mr. Kean's tragic claims were
questioned in a wicked publication called Punch, and
the actor himself graphically rendered in certain of
his many moods of dramatic inspiration. Whereupon
Mr. Charles Kean broke his compact with the author
of A Heart of Gold ; he would not play his hero, but
find a substitute. A new cast of characters was
proposed, against which the author gave his written
protest. But Mr. Charles Kean had, in 1850, bought
the drama ; and therefore, in his own mercantile way,
conceived that in 1854, he had a right to do what he
liked with his own black-and-white ' nigger.' The
author thought differently, and stood to his protest ;
despite of which, however, on the close of last season,
Mr. Charles Kean's solicitor informed the author's
solicitor (there is parchment on Parnassus !) that
A Heart of Gold would be produced at the commence-
ment of the present season. To this no answer was
made. The author had once protested, and that he
thought sufficient to Mr. Kean and to himself. Never-
theless, the piece was put into rehearsal ; and yet the
author had no notice of the fact. Perhaps Mr. Kean
thought that the author might spontaneously send
his solicitor to superintend the rehearsals, who, with
Mr. Kean's solicitor, would settle writs of error as to
readings, misconceptions, and so forth. Had the
author done so, even under such professional revision
there had doubtless been fewer misdemeanors against
nature, good taste and propriety.
" Yet it is under such wilful injuries committed by
DOUGLAS JERROLD 619
a management that a drama is, nevertheless, to be
buoyant ! It is through such a fog of players' brain
that the intention of the author is to shine clearly
forth. With a certain graceful exception, there never
was so much bad acting as in A Heart of Gold.
Nevertheless, according to the various printed reports,
the piece asserted its vitality, though drugged and
stabbed, and hit about the head, as only some players
can hit a play, hard and remorselessly.
" In a word, against the author's protest of
misrepresentation was his play flung, huddled upon
the stage, without a single stage revision allowed on
his part. Solicitors have been alluded to ; but, it
should be stated, legal interference was first employed
by the author for his self-security. He would have
no written or personal communication with an indi-
vidual who had violated the confidence of honourable
minds by printing, " for private circulation only,"
private letters ; letters that — had the writer's consent
been, as is usual in such cases, demanded — might,
for him, have been posted in market-places. It was
in consequence of this meanness that the author, in
subsequent correspondence, employed a solicitor.
For, in the writer's mind, it requires a very nice
casuistry to discover the difference between picking
the confidence of a private letter and picking a lock.
To be sure, there is this difference in the penalties
— in one case we employ a policeman, in the other
contempt."
The letters which were printed by Kean
" for private circulation only " I have never
seen. The dramatist had many digs at Kean.
When in the following year ^laddox took the
Princess' Theatre, Jerrold, writing to Benjamin
Webster, asked, "Is it true that Maddox has
620 DOUGLAS JERROLD
covenanted in the new lease to play Shylock
to Charles Kean's leaden casket ? "
Produced in such circumstances, it is not
surprising to find that A Heart of Gold was
not a stage success. Its production, however,
left the author free to publish the play, and it
was ready in book form as soon as it had been
produced on the boards. The following letter
is evidently in acknowledgment of a copy.
" R " is Ryder, who took the part of Dymond.
" Brighton, Oct. 12, 1854.
" My dear Jerrold, — Thanks for the little book
which has been sent on to me to this place . I shall read
the play to-morrow. I can no longer see one ; and I lose
nothing in this instance if your account of R be
correct, as I believe it is. We are here until December
12, when we go to town, where I have purchased a
house as a permanent residence, close to Melbourne
Terrace, and not far from you. So I hope we may
oftener meet. Will you run down to Brighton for a
couple of days during our stay ? Do. We can give
you a bed and board — and a hearty welcome, as you
know. I should like to have a long chat with you
over the fire ; for it is an age since we met. Come to
us if you can, and fix your own time.
'* Ever yours,
" Sam. Phillips."
Some time before A Heart of Gold was pro-
duced its author is said to have entered into an
arrangement with Kean to write for him a new
nautical play when such should be required,
and had received a hundred pounds on account
of it. Three years elapsed, and then Kean,
DOUGLAS JERROLD 621
having engaged T. P. Cooke, applied to Jerrold
for the promised piece. Smarting under the
combined insult and injury dealt him over A
Heart of Gold the dramatist refused to write it,
and doing so forwarded the manager the hundred
pounds which he had received, together with
fifteen pounds for three years' interest.
Another nautical play of which Jerrold him-
self would laughingly speak was proposed to
him in the following droll fashion. A certain
Hebraic theatrical manager applied to the
dramatist, asking him to write a play on the
subject of Crichton. " Crichton ! " said Jerrold,
"that's a difficult subject, besides I'm not par-
ticularly up in his history. Why not go to
Mr. Harrison Ainsworth? " " No, no," replied
the manager, " you do it, Mr. Jerrold, and I'll
tell you for why. I've got a splendid uniform for
him — an Admiral's uniform ! " " An Admiral's
uniform!" echoed Jerrold; "and what's that
to do with it?" "WTiy, he was called the
Admiral Crichton, you know; and the dress'll
come in beautiful ! "
CHAPTER XIX
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND DOUGLAS JERROLD
— BOULOGNE— A NARROW ESCAPE — DEATH OF
A BECKETT
1855—1856
Early in 1855 Douglas Jerrold found the
popularity of his name being exploited in a
curious fashion, as is to be seen in a letter which
he addressed to Rowland Hill, the Postmaster-
General :
" 26, Circus Road, St. John's Wood,
" February 22 [1855].
" Dear Sir, — I think it right to send you the
enclosed. You will perceive that a swindler is at
work; and as many letters (some registered) remain
for him at the lodging-house in Duke Street, and others
may be sent there or elsewhere, I make known the
fact to you for your guidance. I am about to take
police means for the knave's detection and exposure.
" Yours faithfully,
" Douglas Jerrold."
The enclosure was a card bearing the words :
"DOUGLAS JERROLD,
News Agent,
And Universal Advertising Office,
Alma News Rooms,
No. 6, Duke Street, New Oxford Street.
Newspapers regularly supplied in Town and Country."
622
DOUGLAS JERROLD 623
Seeing that the " news rooms " were no
more than an address at a lodging-house, it
is obvious that the man who was at work
was nothing but a swindler trading on the
familiarity of a well-known name. Whether
he was detected or not I cannot say. As no
more appears to have been heard of it he
presumably did not find the game profitable,
or else, learning that he had been found out,
did not claim the letters.
A few days after that note was written
Douglas Jerrold was one of the guests at a
dinner given by Sir James Moon, the Lord
Mayor, to his fellow members of the Garrick
Club and other men of letters. Jerrold was not
a member of the Garrick — though one describer
of this dinner says that he was — and seeing how
much fun Punch had continually got out of
" Mr. Alderman Moon," it is perhaps a little
surprising that he should have been invited.
George Vandenhoff, the actor, says that he and
Jerrold left the feast in company and agreed
that it had been a case of "dinner capital —
speechifying 5%." The only point was made
by the American Minister (Buchanan) who be-
gan formally with a statement that Republican
as he was there was one institution of Great
Britain for which he felt the deepest respect
and most affectionate admiration — an institu-
tion which he hoped would survive any
revolutions — " the public dinners of great
BRITAIN ! "
The delights of the Swiss holiday of the year
624 DOUGLAS JERROLD
before had, as Hepworth Dixon put it in the
letters already quoted, fired Jerrold with a
desire to go further afield, and having in the
summer of 1855 revisited Paris, he determined
that he would go on to Rome— determined it
impulsively, and as impulsively changed his
mind. The account may best be given in his
son's words :
" He went suddenly one morning, on the appearance
of Mr. Dixon, who was ready for the south, to the
various embassies, to have his passport vised for
the states through which he had suddenly resolved
to pass. It was a beautiful day, and he was flushed
with the bright prospect of gazing on the Mediter-
ranean before he died. He had telegraphed for his
wife and daughter to come to Paris and bid him
good-bye — ^he would not go without. We all went
to bed that night very early, for there remained
much to be done on the morrow, in the evening of
which the two travellers were to proceed on their
journey. But the sunrise brought wet weather, and
the wet weather a change in the temperament of
Douglas Jerrold. He could not help it — weather had
an irrepressible effect upon him. No, he would not
go to Rome : he would return to Boulogne. In vain
it was represented to him so good an opportunity
might not occur again ; the rain poured down and he
turned the horse's heads towards the Northern
Railway Terminus."
To some phlegmatic souls this impulsiveness
may seem ridiculous, but it was characteristic
of the mercurial temperament ; and it is pro-
bable that had his family been accompanying
DOUGLAS JERROLD 625
him south the journey would have been con-
tinued, but Jerrold may have preferred the
Boulogne that he knew so well with the
accustomed company of his wife and daughter
to the journeying among new scenes with a
friend.
Then, too, he was worried over the starting
of his youngest son in life. Thomas was now
two-and-twenty, and had given evidence of
no particular " bent." He had been with
Paxton at Chatsworth, had there learned some-
thing of horticulture, and having acquired
a taste for the open-air freedom of country
life, elected to qualify for taking up farming.
His father arranged for his having a year with
a practical farmer, a Mr. Longton whose place
was some miles from Liverpool. The negotia-
tions were carried on through Jerrold's sister,
Mrs. Copeland — whom Tom was at the time
visiting — and the terms on which a farming
pupil was taken sixty years ago may be
gathered from the following letter to her.
" August 14 [1855],
" My dear Betsy, — I should wish Tom to go to
Mr. Longton as soon as possible — he has wasted time
enough; and I can only hope that he will not add
another year to the years he has already dawdled
away. For the penalty will be his own — I can do
no more. At the ripe age of twenty-two he should
be the master of his own means — but I fear he wants
the energy and self-reliance necessary to self-support.
Mr. Longton's terms appear to me high — but I
presume he is indifferent in the matter of pupils.
VOL. II. s
626 DOUGLAS JERROLD
One hundred guineas for the year, and a pound
a week— (it can't be less and I can't afford more) —
for market journeys (they can't be much), clothes,
etc.— makes £157 for the year ! It is necessary that
Tom should know — (and pray impress this upon him
from me)— that the year being out he must depend
upon his own exertions. I have his mother and sister
to provide for (and my health is none of the strongest)
in the event of what may come at any hour.
" I hope Jane is again in fullest health— the same
with Polly.
" Love to all.
" Your affectionate brother,
" D. Jerrold.
" I will pay the 100 guineas in quarterly payments
of 25 guineas. Get the matter arranged as soon
as you conveniently can. Where is Mr. Longton's
farm ? at what distance from L'pool ? "
Jane and Polly were presumably the only
two of the five Copeland daughters at home
at the time. Tom had his year at Longton's
farm— and before three years had passed was
to marry the first named of those cousins.
The visit to Paris (and Boulogne in lieu of
Italy !) probably took place after that letter
was written, for Jerrold is referred to as having
just returned to London in the following note
from another of the famous exiles from the
Continent who found a home in England during
the disturbed mid- decades of the last century.
" 13, George Street, Portman Square,
" October 22, 1855.
" My dear Sir, — I was apprised yesterday night
of your return by our common friend Mrs. Dele-
DOUGLAS JERROLD 627
pierre.^ Sir, I am eager to forward you this new
volume of mine. It corrects an infinite number of
lamentable errors, and puts in their proper light some
of the most important scenes of the French Revolu-
tion. I should therefore be happy to have it re-
viewed in your patriotic and valuable paper. Many
hearty thanks for your kind remarks on my answer
to Ledru Rollin's manifesto. Pray be so kind as to
let me know at what o'clock I could pay you a visit,
without disturbing you.
" Sincerely yours,
'' Louis Blanc."
The famous politician and historian who
traced all the evils of society to the pressure of
competition, and saw their cure in an all-round
equalizing of wages, had presumably just
issued one of the dozen volumes in which,
during a period of fifteen years, he published
his Histoire de la Revolution Franqaise.
During this same month of October had
taken place the banquet at which Thackeray's
friends wished him godspeed on his second
lecturing trip to America. At the novelist's
desire this was made a private gathering,
though no fewer than sixty people sat down,
under the chairmanship of Dickens — those
present including Leech, Jerrold and a Beckett,
among the Punch contingent, as well as many
other personal friends. Dickens was looked
upon as the best after-dinner speaker of his
day, but Thackeray was only less distressed
1 The wife of Joseph Octave Delepierre (1802-1879),
a noted Belgian author and antiquary, who was one of
the forty members of Our Club.
628 DOUGLAS JERROLD
than Jerrold at having to indulge in more or
less serious speech-making, and it is therefore
not surprising to learn from the note of one who
was present that it was after the more formal
part of the entertainment was over that the
really enjoyable fun began :
" The Chairman quitted, and many near and at a
distance quitted with him. Thackeray was on the
move with the chairman, when, inspired by the
moment, Jerrold took the chair, and Thackeray
remained. Who is to chronicle what now passed ? —
what passages of wit — what neat and pleasant
sarcastic speeches in proposing healths — what varied
and pleasant, ay, and at times sarcastic, acknowledge-
ments ? Up to the time when Dickens left, a good
reporter might have given all, and with ease, to future
ages : but there could be no reporting what followed.
There were words too nimble and too full of flame
for a dozen Gurneys,^ all ears, to catch and preserve.
Few will forget that night. There was an ' air of
wit ' about the room for three days after. Enough
to make two companies, though downright fools,
right witty." 2
The pity is that so appreciative a listener did
not make a note of some of the things which
together impressed him so strongly.
On the only occasion on which I had the
pleasure of seeing the late Sir Benjamin Ward
Richardson — now twenty years ago — he gave
me an amusing recollection of a meeting with
^ i.e., the shorthand writer of that name,
^ Quoted from an unnamed writer in George Hodder's
Memories of My Time.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 629
Douglas Jerrold about this time. They had
first met in the Putney days, when Richard-
son was Hving at Mortlake. On one occasion
they journeyed to town together, and the
author asked the young doctor what he was doing
that evening. " Going home," said Richard-
son, when Jerrokl suggested that he had better
accompany him to Our Club; which he did,
Thackeray, Dickens, Albert Smith and others
being present. Then came the story, which
I tell as near as may be in the veteran's own
words : Richardson was at some party, in the
year (1855-6) of the mayoralty of Salomons —
the first Jew to become Lord Mayor — and was
talking to Jerrold when a small man came into
the room — with a band round his forehead
holding a lock of hair back. " Good-evening,
George." " Good-evening, Jerrold." Jerrold
asked Richardson, " Do you know who that
is ? " " No." " That's George "—there being
only one George, Cruikshank — " would you
like to meet him?" "I should." "Well,
there's no knowing whether he'll take you up,
or take you down ! Here, George, this is
Richardson, a young sawbones." At which
George Cruikshank began pirouetting in front
of him, and Richardson therefore followed suit,
and the two pirouetted to the amusement of
all about them. The artist took the " young
sawbones" up; Richardson became Cruik-
shank's fast friend, and eventually his executor.
Sir Benjamin also told me the story of Cruik-
shank's expatiating (with all the emphatic
630 DOUGLAS JERROLD
zeal of a convert) to Jerrold on the great
virtues of teetotalism, only to be met with,
" Yes, George, I know, water is a very good
thing — except on the brain ! "
There came early in the new year of 1856
an urgent appeal from Charles Dickens to
Jerrold entreating him to take the chair at
the dinner of the General Theatrical Fund :
" Buckstone has been with me to-day in a state of
demi -semi -distraction by reason of Maeready's dread-
ing his asthma so much as to excuse himself (of
necessity, I know) from taking the chair for the fund
on the occasion of their next dinner. Although I
know that you have an objection which you once
communicated to me, I still hold (as I did then) that
it is a reason for and not against. Pray re -consider
the point. Your position in connection with dramatic
literature has always suggested to me that there
would be a great fitness and grace in your appearing
in this post. I am convinced that the public would
regard it in that light, and I particularly ask you to
reflect that we never can do battle with the Lords,
if we will not bestow ourselves to go into places which
they have long monopolized."
Whatever may have been Jerrold's objection
in the case of this particular Fund, it was quite
strong enough, added to his general dislike to
such speech-necessitating positions, to make
him decline the appeal. He better liked the
small gathering of friends fit but few such as
is suggested by an entry in Nathaniel Haw-
thorne's diary in the spring of this year. The
master of American romance had met Charles
DOUGLAS JERROLD 631
Mackay at the Milton Club, and had said to
him, " What I should particularly like, before I
leave London, would be to dine with you and
Douglas Jerrold — we three only — and no more."
More than one attempt at a meeting was made,
and on April 2 Mackay wrote from the office
of the Illustrated London News, of which he was
editor, asking if Jerrold could not dine with
him and Hawthorne at the Reform Club on
the following day at the hour of six. This
time the meeting was effected, and the two
men — both essentially prose-writers, possessed
of a distinct poetic vein, yet widely differing
in the methods of their literary expression —
were mutually attracted. Hawthorne made a
pleasant record of the occasion in his diary,
and it may fittingly be given here as reflecting
at once the general impression of those who
knew of Douglas Jerrold and the particular
impression of those who came to know him
personally :
" Descending again to the basement hall, an elderly
gentleman came in, and was warmly welcomed by
Dr. [Mackay]. He was a very short man, but with
breadth enough, and a back excessively bent —
bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a
face and expression of remarkable briskness and
intelligence. His profile came out pretty boldly,
and his eyes had the prominence that indicates, I
believe, volubility of speech, nor did he fail to talk
from the instant of his appearance, and in the tone
of his voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man,
there was something racy — a flavour of the humorist.
632 DOUGLAS JERROLD
His step was that of an aged man, and he put his
stick down very decidedly at every footfall ; though,
as he afterwards told me, he was only fifty-two, he
need not yet have been infirm. But perhaps he has
had the gout; his feet, however, are by no means
swollen, but unusually small. Dr. [Mackay] intro-
duced him as Mr. Douglas Jerrold, and we went into
the coffee room to dine. ... It was a very pleasant
dinner, and my companions were both very agreeable
men; both taking a shrewd, satirical, yet not ill-
natured view of life and people, and as for Mr. Douglas
Jerrold, he often reminded me of E C ^ in
the richer veins of the latter, both by his face and
expression, and by a tincture of something at once
wise and humorously absurd in what he said. But I
think he has a kinder, more genial, wholesomer nature
than E , and under a very thin crust of outward
acerbity I grew sensible of a very warm heart, and
even of much simplicity of character in this man,
born in London, and accustomed always to London
life.
" I wish I had any faculty whatever of remembering
what people say ; but, though I appreciate anything
good at the moment, it never stays in my memory;
nor do I think, in fact, that anything definite, rounded,
pointed, separable, and transferable from the general
lump of conversation was said by anybody. I
recollect that they laughed at Mr. , and at his
shedding a tear into a Scottish river, on occasion of
some literary festival. They spoke approvingly of
Bulwer, as valuing his literary position, and holding
himself one of the brotherhood of authors ; and not
so approvingly of Charles Dickens, who, born a
plebeian, aspires to aristocratic society. But I said
1 Possibly Ellery Channing.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 633
that it was easy to condescend, and that Bulwer knew
he could not put off his rank, and that he would have
all the advantages of it, in spite of his authorship.
We talked about the position of men of letters in
England, and they said that the aristocracy hated
and despised and feared them; and I asked why it
was that literary men, having really so much power
in their hands, were content to live unrecognized
in the State.
" Douglas Jerrold talked of Thackeray and his
success in America, and said that he himself purposed
going and had been invited thither to lecture. I
asked him whether it was pleasant to a writer of plays
to see them performed ; and he said it was intolerable,
the presentation of the author's idea being so im-
perfect ; and Dr. [Mackay] observed that it was
excruciating to hear one of his own songs sung.
Jerrold spoke of the Duke of Devonshire with great
warmth, as a true, honest, simple, most kind-hearted
man, from whom he himself had received great
courtesies and kindnesses (not, as I understood, in the
way of patronage or essential favours) ; and I (Heaven
forgive me !) queried within myself whether this
English reforming author would have been quite so
sensible of the Duke's excellence if his Grace had
not been a duke. But indeed, a nobleman, who is
at the same time a true and whole-hearted man,
feeling his brotherhood with men, does really deserve
some credit for it.
" In the course of the evening Jerrold spoke with
high appreciation of Emerson ; and of Longfellow,
whose Hiawatha he considered a wonderful perform-
ance; and of Lowell, whose Fable for Critics he espe-
cially admired. I mentioned Thoreau, and proposed
to send his works to Dr. [Mackay], who, being con-
nected with the Illustrated News, and otherwise a
634 DOUGLAS JERROLD
writer, might be inclined to draw attention to them.
Douglas Jerrold asked why he should not have them
too. I hesitated a little, but as he pressed me, and
would have an answer, I said that I did not feel quite
so sure of his kindly judgment on Thoreau's books;
and it so chanced that I used the word ' acrid,' for
lack of a better, in endeavouring to express my idea
of Jerrold's way of looking at men and books. It
was not quite what I meant; but, in fact, he often
is acrid, and has written pages and volumes of
acridity, though, no doubt, with an honest purpose,
and from a manly disgust at the cant and humbug
of the world. Jerrold said no more, and I went on
talking with Dr. [Mackay] ; but, in a minute or two,
I became aware that something had gone wrong, and
looking at Douglas Jerrold, there was an expression
of pain and emotion on his face. By this time a
second bottle of Burgundy had been opened (Clos
Vougeot, the best the Club could produce, and far
richer than Chambertin), and that warm and potent
wine may have had something to do with the depth
and vivacity of Mr. Jerrold's feelings. But he was,
indeed, greatly hurt by that little word ' acrid.' ' He
knew,' he said, ' that the world considered him a
sour, bitter, ill-natured man ; but that such a man as
I should have the same opinion was almost more than
he could bear.' As he spoke, he threw out his arms,
sank back in his seat, and I was really a little appre-
hensive of his actual dissolution into tears. Hereupon
I spoke, as was good need, and though, as usual, I
have forgotten everything I said, I am quite sure it
was to the purpose, and went to this good fellow's
heart, as it came warmly from my own. I do remem-
ber saying that I felt him to be as genial as the glass
of Burgundy which I held in my hand ; and I think
that touched the very right spot ; for he smiled, and
DOUGLAS JERROLD 635
said he was afraid the Burgundy was better than he,
and yet he was comforted. Dr. [Mackay] said that
he Hkewise had a reputation for bitterness, and I
assured him that I might venture to join myself to
the brotherhood of two such men, that I was con-
sidered a very ill-natured person by many people
in my own country. Douglas Jerrold said he was
glad of it.
" We were now in sweetest harmony, and Jerrold
spoke more than it would become me to repeat in
praise of my own books, which he said he admired,
and he found the man more admirable than the books !
I hope so, certainly.
" We now went to the Haymarket Theatre, where
Douglas Jerrold is on the free list ; and after seeing
a ballet by some Spanish dancers, we separated, and
betook ourselves to our several homes. I like Douglas
Jerrold very much." ^
In the summer came another stay in Bou-
logne, broken, apparently, by short visits
home. He was there with his wife alone when
he sent his daughter the following letter
announcing their return.
" Terminus Hotel, Boulogne s/m, July 11, '66.
" My dear Polly, — We shall not be able to leave
here before Monday, early in the morning; being at
home, I hope, about one in the day. Your mother
has an attack of rheumatism in her ankle ; precisely
the same as that she suffered at Brighton. She has
not been out of bed since Wednesday ; but I hope the
disorder is yielding to remedies. You know she is
not, when ill, as bold as Jeanne d'Arc ; but she is in
better spirits than yesterday. Were we to endeavour
^ Nathaniel Hawthorne, English Note Books, ii. 6.
636 DOUGLAS JERROLD
to come to-morrow we could not be home until mid-
night— and this would not be advisable even were
your mother strong enough to attempt it, which I
can hardly hope. The boat from here on Monday
is at a quarter past 6 a.m.
" I am sorry to hear of the death of the squirrel,
and have dropt one tear. As I had no personal
acquaintance of ce petit Monsieur, I do not think
that more can be expected of me. Give Jane my
condolence — to her, it is no doubt, a real trouble.
" I am afraid, my dear Polly, you will be very dull ;
unless Mouse becomes more conversational.
" The weather here would do credit to Manchester
in October — dark and drizzling.
Send me a Lloyd'' s from Salis (Saturday's edition),
also Times and Saturday Review. Your mother sends
love. God bless you, my dear Polly,
" Your affectionate Father,
" Douglas Jerrold.
" If there be any inquiries say I shall be at home
early on Monday afternoon."
" Mouse " was his daughter's pet terrier.
Early in August the family returned to
Boulogne, and a holiday was hopefully entered
upon — for Charles Dickens was also there with
his family, and Jerrold's Punch colleague and
old friend, Gilbert a Beckett — and Jerrold was
in the liveliest spirits. The late Mrs. Garnett
(wife of Dr. Richard Garnett) told me that
she was in Boulogne at the time with her uncle,
Dr. Westland Marston — that they were passing
through the market-place when Marston ex-
claimed, " Why, there's Douglas Jerrold."
DOUGLAS JERROLD 637
And there he was, standing by a fruit stall in
the act of eating a very juicy peach. As they
approached he pointed to the fruit, and then
held up a warning finger, saying, " Don't
joeach ! " before inviting them to join in the
al fresco fruit feast. Then, too, there were
trips on the sea, which always drew him, and
on one occasion a narrow escape from drowning.
The story of this escape was graphically
narrated at his Club during one of the visits
paid to London, and his neighbour at the dinner
table duly made a note of it. It was to that
neighbour, Willert Beale, that the story was
first told :
" ' It was a narrow escape,' he said, whereupon
others anxious to hear what had happened, gathered
round and the narrator recommenced. In answer to
questions eagerly asked, he replied, ' For the sake
of old times, I delight, as you know, to be on the sea.
One morning last week we were strolling along the
Boulogne Pier, when some boatmen, accosting me,
suggested a fishing excursion. They declared the
wind and tide were favourable, and at this season
of the year a school of herring was certain to be met
with off Cape Grisnez. I agreed with them. The
weather was splendid. The sun shone gloriously,
while the lightest, most tepid breeze imaginable
rippled the surface of the water. The sky was cloud-
less. The heat being great on shore the temptation
to do as the boatmen suggested was irresistible. I
sent my boy William to the house for some wraps,
in case of necessity, for my wife and Polly, and to
say we should not be home for a few hours. We
provisioned the ship for the day from the Pier
638 DOUGLAS JERROLD
Restaurant, and in a short time were under way.
The intention of our crew, consisting of a skipper, his
man and a youngster, was to let go the net and sail
slowly before the wind until such time as we might be
tired of the amusement and wish to return. Thus
they proposed making a double haul — one out of my
pocket, and the other out of the water into their net,
and thereby showed their notions of business. I
should have remained trawling and dreaming until
now had I followed my own inclinations, and was
very nearly doing so for good and all, in spite of
myself. The breeze, if such a breath of wind as
filled the sails can be so called, was strong enough to
take us out to sea, a few miles off Cape Grisnez, and
there it left us. The net had been thrown overboard,
and impeded our progress considerably as it hung
heavily in the water from its iron bar athwart the
stern. It was not hauled in, and the boat drifted
with the tide. The lines were baited for us, and we
took lazily enough to deep-sea fishing. Such an
occupation on a hot summer day is most enjoyable.
It is active employment for mind and body without
the slightest exertion except when one has a bite,
and then the excitement is intense. The vast
expanse of water was like a sheet of glass, upon which
the sun poured down its fiercest rays. Fishing boats
in the distance looked like so many insects. We saw
the Folkestone steamer come out of Boulogne
harbour, and could distinctly hear the beat of her
paddles. She glided steadily over the shining surface
of the sea as though impelled by some mysterious
agency. Some birds hovered about, and I threw
them pieces of our bait. It was amusing to watch
them dive after it. We were idly contemplating the
scene around us, and, line in hand, leaning patiently
over the gunwale of the boat, when I noticed a strange
DOUGLAS JERROLD 639
alteration in the skipper. He was pale as death.
He had but a few moments before come up from the
small deck cabin, and was now speaking anxiously
to his man. " What's the matter ?" I asked. " Has
anything gone wrong ? " He came close to me, and,
in reply, asked me not to scare the ladies. He told
me in a whisper it was necessary to haul in the net
and to make for shore without delay. The plugging
of an old leak had dropped out, and the water was
gaining fast upon us. I was much disturbed at what
I heard, but did not, I believe, betray any alarm.
It was, however, useless to try to conceal our predica-
ment from the rest. The rapid movements of those
in the secret soon revealed the fact that danger
threatened us. No one exhibited a sign of fear.
There was not the slightest chance of reaching shore
except by the use of oars, which were at once in
readiness. The sea was a dead calm. The net was
quickly hauled in. The sails were left unfurled,
flapping against the mast, on the remote chance of a
puff of wind helping us. The men rowed gallantly,
William and I assisting them as well as we could,
while Mrs. Jerrold and Polly and the boy were set
to bale out the water with such means as were found
at hand. As I looked up at the clear blue sky I
thought it hard my wife and children should perish
so helplessly ; for myself it did not matter, but their
peril was agonizing to me. Fortunately, they did not
realize it, or, at any rate, were so brave as not to
heed it. They never ceased in their strenuous efforts,
and never murmured. There was no assistance within
hail. The boat became heavier as the water rose.
This was evident to all. We were slowly but surely
sinking, when the skipper suddenly left off rowing
and made the boy take his place. He went below,
and contrived some way or other to improve matters.
640 DOUGLAS JERROLD
He refused to explain what he had done, and from
his manner I am strongly of opinion that he increased
our risk for a time. " Pull ! pull for your lives ! " he
said in a grim undertone of voice as he pushed the
boy roughly aside, and resumed his place. We did,
silently and desperately, each urging the other on
with eager look. As the bailing continued the bulk
of water seemed to decrease. But our thoughts
deceived our eyes. Had the leak become less for-
midable ? No. We were water-logged and founder-
ing, when after two hours' horrible anxiety, during
which all hope more than once forsook me, we ran
the boat ashore with the greatest difficulty, close
under the Cape Grisnez cliffs ! " What a deliverance,"
all exclaimed. Indeed it was ! And we fell on our
knees to thank God for this great mercy towards us.'
" This description was given by Douglas Jerrold,
with all the force and colouring of a theatrical recita-
tion. The scene was vividly brought before us as
much by the dramatic power as by the language of
the reciter, whose tone of voice and varied emphasis
of expression caused us, one and all, to share with
him in fancy the period he had so recently experienced
in reality." ^
A narrow escape affords in retrospect but
an interesting story, and this year's stay in
Boulogne was to be far more heavily shadowed.
There came an outbreak of diphtheria in
Boulogne— one of a Beckett's children caught
the disease, and the pleasant holiday was to
end suddenly in tragic gloom. A couple of
Jerrold's letters to friends in London give the
story. To Charles Knight he wrote :
1 Willert Beale, Light of Other Days.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 641
" 142, Rue Boston, Boulogne- sur-Mer,
" August Z<d {\%b&].
" My dear Knight, — I have been about to write
to you to try to persuade you here for a little holiday ;
and now I should be very sorry to see you, for this
place seems plague stricken. Whilst I write poor
a Beckett is on his death-bed; no hope. I expect to
hear every moment of his departure. His boy, a
fine youth of fourteen, was seized some ten days ago
with putrid sore throat, and yesterday he was buried.
Dickens has sent all his children away, and leaves
himself with Georgy on Thursday.
" a Beckett, a fortnight since, arrived here from
Paris, which he visited for a week only. He found
his boy ill, became ill himself, in a day or two took
to his bed, and is now — Never did sudden desolation
fall more suddenly upon a more united or a more
happy family. Poor Mrs. a Beckett ! her conduct
has been, even for a wife, and that's saying much,
most self-devoted, most heroic. She leaves to-
morrow for home, and what a home !
" We are tolerably well, but shall leave in a few days.
The place has now a sepulchral taint. I never knew
poor a Beckett looking so strong and hearty as when
I met him here. ' What shadows we are, and what
shadows we pursue ! ' God bless you all.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold.
" Sunday morning.
" I open the letter to give the last sad news. Poor
a Beckett died last night at six."
To John Forster Jerrold wrote a day or so
later :
VOL. II. T
642 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" Boulogne.
"... A little more than a fortnight since I never
saw a Beckett look stronger, more hearty. He left,
in that terribly hot week, for Paris ; and there, I fear,
the mischief was done. When he returned he com-
plained of a violent headache ; and this was doubtless
increased by his anxiety for his boy, then stricken
with putrid sore throat. I called and found that
a Beckett had been ordered a blister to his neck —
determination of blood. The misery of the poor wife
and mother between two deathbeds cannot be de-
scribed. . . . Nothing could exceed the tenderness
and care of the eldest son — ' c^est un ange ' said the
people at the boarding-house.
" We had accounts three or four times a day, and
strange as it may seem, I felt reassured for a Beckett,
when the boy died. He never knew of his boy's
death. Indeed, it was only at rare intervals, and for
a brief time, that he had any consciousness. On
Friday I had lost all hope ; and on Saturday, 6 p.m.,
all was over. For myself, from what I have gathered
from the doctors, I do not believe that his death was
produced by any local causes : it was the murderous
heat of Paris, with the anxiety for his boy. Never
was a family so united, so suddenly and so wholly
made desolat-.L'. Competence, position, mutual affec-
tion, ' all that makes the happier man,' and all now
between four boards ! We leave next week (there is
a charnel taint upon this place, and I never tarry here
again), abridging our intended stay by a fortnight.
My wife, though made nervous and much agitated
by this horror, is, on the whole, much better."
It fell to Douglas Jerrold to pen a tender
tribute to his friend for the pages of Punch —
a Beckett's death was the first gap in the ranks
DOUGLAS JERROLD 643
of those who had triumphantly estabhshed
the " cleanly comic " — and he returned to
London with his many happy memories of
Boulogne dimmed by tragedy. He came back
to Circus Road, and to the consideration of
removal to a new home. A fresh house was
taken, 11, Greville Place, Kilburn Priory, and
thither the family moved during this autumn.
The last letter written from Circus Road which
I have was to those good friends, the Cowden
Clarkes, who were about to take flight to the
sunny south of the Mediterranean coast :
" 26, Circus Road, St. John's Wood,
" October 20, 1856.
" My dear Friends, — I have delayed an answer
to your kind letter (for I cannot but see in it the
hands and hearts of both) in the hope of being able
to make my way to Bayswater. Yesterday I had
determined, and was barred, and barred, and barred
by droppers -in, the Sabbath -breakers ! Lo, I delay
no longer. But I only shake hands with you for
a time, as it is my resolute determination to spend
nine weeks at Nice next autumn with my wife and
daughter. I shall give you due notice of the descent
that we may avail ourselves of your experience as to
' location ' as those savages the Americans yell in
their native war-whoop tongue.
" Therefore, God speed ye safely to your abiding
place, where I hope long days of serenest peace may
attend ye.
" Believe me, ever truly yours,
" Douglas Jerrold.
" Charles Cowden"! ^j , „
Mary Victoria J
644 DOUGLAS JERROLD
*' Nine weeks at Nice next autumn " — thus
lightly do we make happy resolves about the
uncertain future !
Some time during the autumn the Jerrolds
removed to 11, Greville Place, and there on
the last day of the year the family and a few
intimate friends assembled to see the old year
out and the new year in. To Douglas Jerrold's
eldest son it fell all too soon to describe the
scene in first telling the story of his father's
life:
" Throughout the evening the host was the merriest
of the party, and even tried to dance. His words
sparkled from him, and kept us all happy. The last
minutes of the old year, however, found the jocund
host, with his friends gathered about him, at a large
circular supper table, in his study. With his watch
in his hand, he rose, very serious ; sharply touched
now. There was not a bit of gaiety in that pale face,
set in the white wild mane of hair. But you might
see a deep emotion, if you knew the speaker, in the
twitching of the mouth, and in the eyes that seemed
to swell in their endeavour to drink in the sympathy
of all around. Very few words were said, but there
was a peculiar solemnity in them that hushed the
guests, as a master hushes a school. The hope was
that 1858, at that board, if they were all spared,
should have its birth celebrated. If they were all
spared ! If thoughts of death crept icily into the
marrow of any there, not to the speaker — that cup
brimmed with warm life — did death point."
CHAPTER XX
THE REFORM CLUB — ILLNESS — THE END
1857
It was early in 1857 that it was proposed
to Douglas Jerrold that he should become a
candidate for membership of the Reform Club,
the suggestion coming presumably from his
friend, Charles Mackay. Jerrold himself cer-
tainly felt that his emphatic and independent
utterances as a political journalist might well
make his election a matter of doubt — for his
views were undoubtedly far more Radical than
those of mid- Victorian Whiggism. Mackay
appears to have suggested that Thackeray's
support should be enlisted, but Jerrold, always
himself impulsive and spontaneous, seems never
to have felt " sure " of the more self-contained
and reticent character of his friend, and replied
to the suggestion :
"11, Greville Place, Kilburn Priory.
" My dear Mackay, — Thackeray and I are very
good friends, but our friend T. is a man so full of
crotchets, that, as a favour, I would hardly ask him
to pass me the salt. Therefore, don't write to him.
If there be the probability of the least difficulty, ' let
us proceed no further in this business.' Perhaps just
now the times may be out of joint. Punch is going
hard at Cobden, Milner Gibson, and the Manchester
645
646 DOUGLAS JERROLD
folk — all touching the Chinese business. They might,
therefore, be unusually hostile. Still, I leave the
affair to your discretion, fearing, however, that you
have already had too much trouble with it. I knew
1 was a difficult customer.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
That Mackay wrote to Thackeray, received
a cordial response, and communicated it to
Jerrold is made evident by the next note :
"11, Oreville Place, Kilburn Priory, March 11 [1857].
" My dear Mackay, — I heartily thank you for
the trouble you take in this matter. I was both
pleased and rebuked by T.'s letter. I suppose
that / at least must henceforth say nothing of
' crotchets.'
" I leave the affair entirely to your discretion. If
you should feel any doubt, I know you will hold off.
For myself, I cannot but suspect that this Chinese
warfare both in Punch and my own paper may not
tend to general conciliation.
" Truly yours,
" D. Jerrold."
On April 12 he was duly put up for member-
ship— his proposer being Thackeray and his
seconder Mackay. When the election came
on Thackeray was away in the provinces,
delivering his lectures on " the four Georges,"
but he was not to be deterred thereby from
exercising a friendly office, and he journeyed
to London from Leamington on his way to
Norwich that he might vote at the Reform.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 647
Continuing his journey to Norwich he mystified
Hodder, who was acting as his lecture agent,
with the remark, " We've got the httle man in,"
and then went on to explain that Jerrold had
been duly elected a member of the Reform
Club, though it had been feared " that the
* minnows ' of the institution would rather
forego the questionable pleasure of having
a Triton amongst them." The election took
place on May 7, and on the following day
Jerrold wrote :
" 11, Greville Place, Kilbum Priory.
" My dear Mackay, — Many hearty thanks for
your friendly zeal. The result was unexpectedly
communicated to me last night by one who had voted
(a stranger), at Russell's rehearsal lecture. I also
found on getting home a letter from Bernal Osborne,
and this morning the official notification from the
secretary. I suppose my next step is to call and
pay.
" What day will suit you next week for a tete-d-tete
dinner ? Friday ? I must wait for Thackeray's
return to have a muster.
" Truly yours obliged,
'• D. Jerrold."
Whether the " muster " of the new member
and his friends of the Club took place cannot
be said ; it probably did not, as Thackeray was
still away lecturing. "Russell's rehearsal lec-
ture " referred to the inauguration of the late
Sir William Howard Russell's lectures on the
Crimean campaign. As " the pen of the war "
Russell had become the first of war correspon-
648 DOUGLAS JERROLD
dents, and a story is told of Jerrold's " coach-
ing " him in the way of lecturing, which is the
more curious, seeing how nervous a man the
" coach " was on the platform. It is said that
Jerrold, jumping on a table, showed how the
lecturer should address his audience. Possibly
it was to some such help that Russell referred in
a fragment of a note saying, " Thus see how one
good turn entails a demand for another. But
your kindness to me has been boundless, and
believe me that I am sincerely yours always."
Jerrold interested himself greatly in Russell's
lectures, advising him in the condensation as
well as the delivery of them.
This spring found Douglas Jerrold as cheerful
and seemingly as well as he had ever been.
Lloyd's was prospering under his editorship,
he had many opportunities of meeting those
congenial friends in whom his social soul de-
lighted, he had projects of fresh work before
him, and he was looking forward to an autumn
holiday in the sunny south of the Mediter-
ranean shore with his good friends, the Cow-
den Clarkes and the Novellos. In the very
prime of life, it might have seemed that he
had yet many years of happiness and activity
before him, though the letter of the previous
August to his sister hinted at knowledge of
disease that might at any time prove fatal.
In the spring of 1857 it was, however, Mrs.
Jerrold who fell ill, and for her sake a visit
was paid in April to Brighton, whence Jerrold
wrote to his daughter Polly : " The weather
Doi'fiLAs .Fi:itH()i,i), l}5r)7
(Frojn a plioto;intjih //// I),: 11,'iih If. Dimnoivl, M,ui IS'i
DOUGLAS JERROLD 649
is warm and beautiful, and I hope is doing
your mother good. Love to all (Mouse in-
cluded)," and two days later came the announce-
ment of their return.
Early in May Jerrold gave a sitting to Dr.
Hugh Welch Diamond, an enthusiastic student
of photography, who took a striking series of
portraits. Diamond is credited with having
invented the paper or cardboard photograph,
and some copies of these portraits taken in
May 1857 reflect the greatest credit on him,
for they are as fresh as though they had but
just come from the photographer's studio.
On the last day of the month Jerrold had
promised to attend a dinner party to be given
at Greenwich by W. H. Russell, and had also
promised to go earlier on the same day with
Charles Dickens to hear Russell rehearse the
last lecture of his series at the Gallery of
Illustration in Regent Street. The account
may best be given in the words which Dickens
wrote to his friend's son :
" On Sunday, May 31, 1857, I had an appoint-
ment to meet him at the Gallery of Illustration in
Regent Street. We had been advising our friend,
Mr. Russell, in the condensation of his lectures on the
war in the Crimea, and we had engaged with him to
go over the last of the series there at one o'clock that
day. Arriving some minutes before the time, I found
your father sitting alone in the hall. ' There must
be some mistake,' he said : no one else was there ; the
place was locked up ; he had tried all the doors ; and
he had been waiting there a quarter of an hour by
650 -DOUGLAS JERROLD
himself. I sat down by him in a niche on the staircase,
and he told me that he had been very unwell for
three or four days. A window in his study had been
newly painted, and the smell of the paint (he thought
it must be that) had filled him with nausea and turned
him sick, and he felt quite weak and giddy through
not having been able to retain any food. He was a
little subdued at first and out of spirits ; but we sat
there half-an-hour talking, and when we came out
together he was quite himself.
" In the shadow I had not observed him closely;
but when we got into the sunshine of the streets, I
saw that he looked ill. We were both engaged to dine
with Mr. Russell at Greenwich, and I thought him so
ill then that I advised him not to go, but to let me
take him or send him home in a cab. He complained,
however, of having turned so weak — we had not
strolled as far as Leicester Square — that he was fearful
he might faint in the cab, unless I could get him
some restorative, and unless he could ' keep it down.'
I deliberated for a moment whether to turn back to
the Athenaeum, where I could have got a Httle brandy
for him, or to take him on into Covent Garden for the
purpose; meanwhile, he stood leaning against the
rails of the enclosure, looking for the moment very
ill indeed. Finally, we walked on to Covent Garden,
and before we had gone fifty yards he was very much
better. On our way Mr. Russell joined us. He was
then better still, and walked between us unassisted.
I got him a hard biscuit and a little weak cold brandy
and water, and begged him by all means to try to
eat. He broke up and ate the greater part of the
biscuit, and then was much refreshed and comforted
by the brandy ; he said that he felt the sickness was
overcome at last and that he was quite a new man ;
it would do him good to have a few quiet hours in the
DOUGLAS JERROLD 651
air, and he would go with us to Greenwich. I still
tried to dissuade him, but he was by this time bent
upon it, and his natural colour had returned, and he
was very hopeful and confident.
" We strolled through the Temple on our way to
a boat, and I have a lively recollection of him stamping
about Elm Tree Court, with his hat in one hand and
the other pushing his hair back, laughing in his
heartiest manner at a ridiculous remembrance we
had in common, which I had presented in some
exaggerated light to divert him. We found our boat
and went down the river, and looked at the Leviathan
[i.e. The Great Eastern] which was building, and talked
all the way. It was a bright day, and as soon as we
reached Greenwich we got an open carriage and went
out for a drive about Shooter's Hill. In the carriage
Mr. Russell read us his lecture, and we discussed it
with great interest; we planned out the ground of
Inkermann on the heath, and your father was very
earnest indeed*. The subject held us so that we were
graver than usual ; but he broke out at intervals in
the same hilarious way as in the Temple, and he
over and over again said to me, with great satisfaction,
how happy he was that he had ' quite got ovei' that
paint ! '
" The dinner-party was a large one, and I did not
sit near him at table. But he and I arranged before
we went in to dinner that he was only to eat of some
simple dish that we agreed upon, and was only to
drink sherry-and-water. We broke up very early,
and before I went away with Mr. Leech, who was to
take me to London, I went round to Jerrold, for whom
some one else had a seat in a carriage, and put my
hand upon his shoulder, asking him how he was. He
turned round to show me a glass beside him with a
little wine-and-water in it. ' I have kept to the
652 DOUGLAS JERROLD
prescription ; it has answered as well as this morning's,
my dear old boy; I have quite got over the paint,
and I am perfectly well.' He was really elated by
the relief of having recovered, and was as quietly
happy as I ever saw him. We exchanged ' God bless
you ! ' and shook hands."
They were never to meet again.
From the dinner at Greenwich Jerrold re-
turned to town with Dr. Quain, and though in
excellent spirits still complained of the effect
of the paint. There were iron steps leading
down from the French window of his study
to the garden, and to the painting of these he
attributed the illness which he felt, as he told
Russell, in throat, stomach and head. Though
he revived in the company of his friends, it
may well be that it was rather by the assertion
of will than from any real improvement, for
the next day he was in bed, really ill, but not
as it appeared enough to cause any anxiety.
For the next day or two, though in bed, he
kept interest in his work, read the papers,
and marked the subjects for treatment by his
son, William, who was doing the week's work
for Lloyd's for him. In the spring-file on his
desk were clippings that had no doubt struck
him as suggestive of future work — one a
paper on " allusive heraldry," the other a sum-
mary of the heroic story of Mary Patton of
Boston — a story in which it may be that
Jerrold saw the germ of a new nautical drama.
Part of his son's account of the closing days
must tell of the end :
DOUGLAS JERROLD 653
" On the Thursday I was sitting at his desk, making
a poor substitute for him, when, to my great astonish-
ment, he appeared at the door. He was bent — weak ;
his face was very white. But he had suddenly got
out of bed, and dressed himself, determined to lie
upon his study sofa, within sight of the garden. ' I
shan't disturb you, m}'^ boy,' he said faintly, as he cast
himself upon the couch. His breath came, I could
hear, with difficulty. He did disturb me. I could
only look at him as he lay, with his white hair stream-
ing upon the pillow, and his thin hand upon the head
of little Mouse, who had followed him from his bed
room, and was lying by his side.
" I finished my task presently, and he asked me
for the heads of the subjects I had treated. And
then he started from the sofa, came to the desk, took
his chair, and would himself put the copy in an
envelope, and direct it to the printer. The effort
with which this was done was painful to witness.
He even wrote a short note ; and then he was coaxed
into the drawing-room, as a cooler place than his own
study. Some hours afterwards, lying quietly there,
he seemed much better. He spoke hopefully — so
hopefully, indeed — of his recovery, and of his ability
to write his leaders the next week, and he appeared
so cheerful, that I presently left him, to return to my
own home."
It was but a brief temporary improvement.
On the next day he was worse, and said —
calmly and cheerfully, it is recorded — ^that he
felt that his time was come. Further medical
help was called in, and the doctors declared
that there was still hope, but the patient was
not to be persuaded to believe it, though his
654 DOUGLAS JERROLD
family may have taken some comfort. By the
Sunday — ^just a week after the meeting with
so many friends at Greenwich — even the most
hopeful were compelled to abandon any belief
in a possible recovery.
Further to summarize his son's record :
Still when his breathing would permit it he
talked of things about him, and of death, too,
with cheerful calmness. His youngest child,
Thomas, never left his bedside, and moved
him about with the tenderness of a woman;
towards evening, he was seated in an arm-
chair before the open window, and the setting
sun threw a strong warm glare over the room ;
his face was bloodless, and his white hair hung
wildly, nobly, about it. He was calm, and
kissed all tenderly. Little Mouse came with
the rest, and sat before him, and when his
eye fell upon the little creature he called her
faintly. Then, in a sad lingering voice he
said, " The sun is setting." He spoke of
friends not about him. " Tell the dear boys,"
he said, referring to his Punch associates,
" that if ever I've wounded any of them, I've
always loved them." Horace Mayhew gently
said to him, referring to an estrangement that
had existed between him and a relative, " You
are friends with H ?" "Yes, yes. God
bless him ! " When the doctor arrived and,
having administered restoratives, asked him
how he felt, he answered faintly, " As one
who is waiting — and waited for." The doctor
suggested that he must not despond, that he
DOUGLAS JERROLD 655
might yet be well again— the blue eyes seemed
to borrow a last flash, and to express almost
scorn; he saw the falsity spoken in kindness,
and repelled it, for he had no fear of death.
Then a faintness came upon him again, and
he gasped for air, motioning all from the
window — " Let me pass — let me pass ! " he
almost whispered.
He was carried to bed again. The sun set
and rose once more, and still he lingered.
" Why tease a dying wretch ? " " Why
torture a dying creature ? " he asked when one
of the medical men insisted upon administering
medicine or tried to afford relief by cupping.
Noon of the Monday came, and then, " We
saw a dreadful change. We called to the
dear ones in the next room, and in wild agony
they gathered about the bed. For a moment
again his eyes regained their li^ht; he saw all
about his death-bed; his head leaned against
my breast ; he looked up and said, as one hand
fell in mine and my brother took the other,
' This is as it should be.' "
Thus, at half-an-hour after noon on June 8,
1857, at the age of fifty-four, Douglas Jerrold
died, at perhaps the very height of the
fame which he had successively achieved as
dramatist, as social satirist, as an earnest
political writer, and as wit. He appeared far
older than his years to his contemporaries,
partly owing to the fact that he began to
" make a name " while he was yet in the
twenties of his age, partly owing to his figure
656 DOUGLAS JERROLD
bowed by rheumatism, and to his long hair,
grey almost to whiteness. His friends,
Thackeray and Dickens, were to pass away six
and thirteen years later at the ages of fifty -two
and fifty-eight, both in their prime, and both
seemingly far older than their years.
It has been seen that Dickens and Jerrold
last met at the Russell dinner at Greenwich,
and Dickens has recorded the shock with
which, travelling up to town from Gadshill on
June 9, he heard a fellow-passenger exclaim,
opening his newspaper, " Douglas Jerrold is
dead."
It is not necessary to recall the things that
were said on the loss of " a writer who for epi-
grammatic brilliancy has never been excelled
in the British language," such were summed up
in the words which occurred on one of the an-
nouncements of Jerrold' s death : " By this
event English literature has lost its most caus-
tic and epigrammatic writer, London society
its brightest wit, and cant of every kind its
bitterest foe."
On June 15 the funeral took place at Nor-
wood Cemetery, where a dozen years before
had been laid his early friend, Laman Blanch-
ard. " Almost every literary and artistic
celebrity " in the London of the time was
present among the two thousand people,
strangers as well as friends, who gathered to
do homage to the dead. The pall-bearers were
William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens,
Richard Monckton Milnes, John Forster, Sir
DOUGLAS JERROLD 657
Joseph Paxton, Mark Lemon, Charles Knight,
Horace Mayhew, Hepworth Dixon, and Shirley
Brooks, and the list of those present comprises
many more names still familiar in the mouths
of men.
Douglas Jerrold died intestate. He had
not " saved money " as Thackeray expressed
the hope that he would, though strongly
imbued with a sense of independence and the
desire to leave those dependent upon him free
from care, as he emphatically said in his letter
to Dickens of October 1846. It is not easy —
especially it was not easy in those days — for a
man living as he phrased it from pen to mouth,
to put by any large amount. Both Dickens
and Thackeray in being enabled to leave
substantial fortunes owed more perhaps to
the popularity of their readings than to that
of their writings. Jerrold did not leave his
family penniless, as was unwarrantably stated
at the time. Besides the life policy, which
existed for the paying off of the old debt
contracted by the failure of the newspaper of
ten years before, there appears to have been
a further policy payable to the widow, and the
rights in some of his plays and other works still
remained with the family; it was even stated
in a Liverpool paper that Mrs. Jerrold and
her daughter were left with an income of
£600 a year; but this was unquestionably a
ridiculous exaggeration.
A friend wrote of Jerrold at the time of his
death :
VOL. II. TJ
658 DOUGLAS JERROLD
" His fault as a man — if it be a fault — was a too
great tenderness of heart. He never could say ' No.'
His purse — when he had a purse — was at every man's
service, as was also his time, his pen, and his influence
in the world. If he possessed a shilling somebody
would get sixpence of it from him. He had a lending
look, of which many took advantage. ... A gener-
osity which knew no limit — not even the limit at his
banker's — let him into trials from which a colder
man would have readily escaped. To give all that
he possessed to relieve a brother from immediate
trouble was nothing; he willingly mortgaged his
future. And yet this man was accused of ill -nature ! "
Thus it was that, though necessity did not
demand charity, a number of friends and
admirers of the writer decided to raise a
fund " In remembrance of Douglas Jerrold."
There were dramatic performances, lectures
and readings — perhaps the most noteworthy
being Dickens's reading of his Christmas
Carol at St. Martin's Hall on June 30,
and Thackeray's lecture on Week-Day
Preachers ^ at the same place three weeks
later. It is not necessary to follow the story
of these performances. A sum of £2000 was
left when all expenses were paid, and this was
invested by the trustees for the benefit of
Mrs. Douglas Jerrold and her unmarried
daughter. Mrs. Jerrold died on May 6, 1859,
at the age of fifty-five. Some years later there
was a Chancery case to decide whether the
money was or was not absolutely the property
^ Entitled Charity and Humour in his works.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 659
of the survivor. It was adjudged to be hers
absolutely, and that the final disposition of
it might best carry out the intention of those
who raised the money, Miss Jerrold executed
a deed by which on her death it went to the
founding of a scholarship in memory of her
father. In accordance with that deed, when
she died on March 30, 1910, the money passed
to Christ Church College, Oxford, for the found-
ing of a "Douglas Jerrold Scholarship in English
Literature."
LIST OF DOUGLAS JERROLD'S PLAYS
The names following the titles indicate the pub-
lishers of separate editions ; " not printed " indicates
that no edition has been traced.
1821
More Frightened than Hurt. Buncombe; Lacy;
French; Dicks.
The Chieftain'' s Oath ; or. The Rival Clans. Not
printed.
The Cripsey of Derncleugh. Buncombe.
1823
The Smoked Miser ; or, The Benefit of Hanging,
Buncombe; Lacy; French; Bicks.
The Island ; or. Christian and His Comrades. Not
printed.
1824
The Seven Ages, a Dramatic Sketch. Printed, but
not discoverable.
Bampfylde Moore Carew. ( ? Buncombe).
1825
The Living Skeleton. Not printed.
London Characters. Not printed.
1826
Popular Felons. Not printed.
Paul Pry, a Comedy. Lacy (two forms); Bicks;
Loft's " Illustrated British Brama."
660
DOUGLAS JERROLD 661
1828
The Statue Lover ; or. Music in Marble. Duncombe.
The Tower of Lochlain ; or, The Idiot Son. Dun-
combe; Lacy.
Descart the Buccaneer. Lacy ; Dicks.
Wives by Advertisement. Lacy ; Dicks.
Ambrose Gwinett, a Seaside Story. Davidson ; Lacy ;
Dicks.
Two Eyes between Two. Duncombe; Dicks.
Fifteen Years of a Drunkard's Life. Duncombe;
Dicks.
1829
John Overy, the Miser of Southwark Ferry. Davidson ;
Lacy; Dicks.
Law and Lions. Duncombe; Dicks.
Black-Eyed Susan ; or. All in the Downs. Collected
Writings; Duncombe; Lacy; French; Dicks.
Vidocq, the French Police Spy. Duncombe.
The Flying Dutchman. Not printed.
The Lonely Man of Study. Not printed. ' ^ ' >- a -^ -^
Thomas a Becket. Richardson ; Cumberland ; Dicks.
The Witchfinder. Not printed.
1830
Sally in Our Alley. Cumberland; French; Dicks.
The Mutiny at the Nore. Davidson; Cumberland;
Lacy; French; Dicks.
Gervase Skinner. Not printed.
The Press-Gang ; or, Archibald of the Wreck. Not
printed.
The DeviVs Ducat ; or, the Gift of Mammon. Cumber-
land; French; Dicks.
662 DOUGLAS JERROLD
1831
Martha Willis ; or, the Maid Servant. Lacy ; Dicks.
~ Paul Braintree, the Poacher. Not printed.
^ The Lady Killer. Not printed.
The Bride of Ludgate. Cumberland; Davidson;
Dicks.
1832
The Rent Day. Collected Writings; Chappie;
Duncombe; Lacy; Dicks.
The Golden Calf. Richardson; Cumberland; Dicks.
The Factory Girl. Not printed.
1833
Nell Gwynne ; or, the Prologue. Collected Writings ;
Duncombe; Lacy; Dicks.
- Jack Dolphin. Not printed.
The Housekeeper. Collected Writings; Duncombe;
Lacy; Dicks.
Swamp Hall. Not printed.
1834
The Wedding Gown. Collected Writings; Miller;
Duncombe; Dicks.
Beau Nash, the King of Bath. Wilkes; Duncombe;
Dicks.
1835
Hearts and Diamonds. Not printed.
The Schoolfellow. Collected Writings; Duncombe;
Lacy; French; Dicks.
The Hazard of the Die. Miller ; Duncombe ; Dicks.
The Man's an Ass. Not printed. The MS. is in the
Forster Library, South Kensington Museum.
Doves in a Cage. Collected Writings; Dicks.
DOUGLAS JERROLD 663
1836
The Painter of Ghent. Collected Writings; Dun-
combe ; Lacy ; Dicks.
The Man for the Ladies. Dicks.
The Bill-sticker. Not printed; but still available in
MS. in 1866, according to the Dramatic Authors'
Society's list of plays by members.
^n Old House in the City. Not printed, t/^o ,*, > y^
The Perils of Pippins. Duncombe ; Dicks.
1837
The Gallantee Showman ; or., Mr. Peppercorn at Home.
Not printed.
1838
The Mother. Not printed.
1839
The Spendthrift. This has never been acted. A copy
of the MS. is in the Forster Library at South
Kensington.
1841
The White Milliner. Duncombe; Lacy; Dicks.
1842
The Prisoner of War. Collected Writings; How &
Parsons; Duncombe; Lacy; Dicks.
Bubbles of the Day. Collected Writings ; How & Par-
sons ; Punch Office ; Dicks.
Gertrude'' s Cherries ; or, Waterloo in 1835. Berger ;
Lacy; Dicks.
1845
Time Works Wonders. Collected Writings; Punch
Office; Lacy; Dicks.
664 DOUGLAS JERROLD
1850
The Catspaw. Collected Writings ; Punch Office.
1851
Retired from Business. Collected Writings; Punch
Office.
1853
St. Cupid ; or, Dorothy^ s Fortune. Collected Writings ;
Bradbury & Evans.
1854
A Heart of Gold. Bradbury & Evans.
There are no clues as to the dates of the following,
none of which has been printed :
Mammon.
Bajazet Gag ; or, the Manager in Search of a Star.
Rival Tobacconists.
INDEX
A Beckett, Gilbert Abbot, 189,
196, 636, 640 et seq.
Adam, J. R., " the Cremornc
Poet," 481
Ainsworth, Harrison, 621
Ambrose Owinett, 93-4
Anti-Punch, 480
Appeal Against Punch, 420
Arliss's Literary Collections, 71
AthencBum, The, 184, 543
Atkinson, H. G., 539
Austen, Admiral Charles J., 25
Austen, Jane, 25-6
BaUy, E. H., R.A., 590
Ballot, The, 92, 183
Bampfylde Moore Carew, 66
Bannister, John, 121
Barber's Chair, The, 437, 468,
482^
Barnett, John, 246 et seq.
Beau Nash, 227, 232 et seq.
Bedford, Paul, 307-8
Bell's Weekly Magazine, 179
Bill Sticker, The, 279
Black-Eyed Su^an, 97, 103 ei
seq., 204
Blackwood's Magazine, 249
Blanchard, Laman, 60-1, 65,
68-9, 71, 89 et seq., 136-7,
179, 232, 239, 244-5, 280,
327, 330-3, 386-7, 499
Blanchard, Walter, 499, 510
Bride of Ludgate, The, 185 et seq.
Brooks, Shirley, 657
Brown, Jogrum, 20
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,
368
Bubbles of the Day, 327, 335-6
Buckingham, James Silk, 419-20
Buckstone, John Baldwin, 120,
228, 289
665
Buiin, Allied, 230, 259 304,
418
Byron, Lord, 61
Cakes and Ale, 333-4
Cambridge Garrick Club, The,
274-6
Carlyle, Thomas, 429
Carol, The, 555
Gatspaw, The, 441, 504, 513, 531
et seq.
Caudle's Curtain Lectures, Mrs.,
383 et seq.
Chatfield, Edward, 280
Chieftain's Oath, The, 50
Chisholm, airs. Caroline, 600
Chorley, Henry F., 361, 414
Chronicles of Clovernook, The,
14, 359, 430, 442
Clarke, Charles and Mary
Cowden, 409, 420-1, 464,
466-7, 495
Cobham, Thomas, 11, 15
Cochrane, Lord, 20
Colman, George, 187, 193
Cooke, T. P., 109-10, 116, 119,
121, 126-7, 129, 157-60,
164, 184, 204 et seq.
Cooke, Mrs. T. P., 156 et seq.,
161
Cooper, Thomas, 415-17, 437,
582
Copeland, Elizabeth Sarah, 10,
19, 38, 106, 455, 500, 579,
625
Copeland, Fanny, see Fitz-
william.
Copeland, Jane Matilda, 626
Copeland, Robert, 9, 10
Copeland, William Robert, 10,
106; 194, 316
Cruikshank, George, 333, 629
666
INDEX
Cuddle^ s Bedroom Lectures, Mrs.,
385
Daily News, The, 424
Dance, Charles, 228
Daniel, George, 127, 138, 146,
155, 166, 186
Davidge, George Bohvell, 72,
88, 92, 97 et seq., 113-14,
203, 205
Delepierre, J. O., 627
Descart, or the French Buccaneer,
92
Devil's Ducat, The, 165 et seq.
Devonshire, Duke of, 574, 577,
633
Diamond, Hugh Welch, 649
Dibdin, Thomas, 72
Dibdin, Thomas John, 3 et seq.
Dickens, Charles, 265, 290, 294,
346-8, 373 et seq., 424-5,
442, 456, 474 et seq., 503,
524, 541, 563, 574-6, 627,
630, 649 et seq., 656
Dixon, William Hep worth, 122,
604 et seq., 624, 657
Dixon, William Jerrold, 604
Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Maga-
zine, 373, 378 et seq.
Douglas Jerrold's Weekly News-
paper, 426, 434 et seq.
Doves in a Cage, 271 et seq.
Dramatic Authors' Society, 228
Dramatic Censorship, 187, 193
Dramatic Literature, Select
Committee on, 203
Drill Sergeant, The, 86
Duncombe, John, 65
Dundonald, Earl of, 470
Elliston, Robert William, 97,
103 et seq., 157-60, 175, 194
Ellistoniana, 120
Elton, Edward Wilham, 179,
357-9
English Figaro, The, 191
English in Little, The, 432, 468
Examiner, The, 184
Factory Child, The, 214
Factory Oirl, The, 211 e( seq.
Farren, William, 192
Fell, Bishop, 10
Ferguson, Sir Samuel, 507
Fifteen Years of a Drunkard's
Life, 95-6
Figaro in London, 189, 211
Fitzball, 306
Fitzgerald, Robert, see Jerrold,
Robert.
Fitzwilliam, Mrs., 9, 106
Flying Dutchman, The, 132
Fonblanque, Albany, 184, 245,
369
Forster, John, 236, 265, 292,
339, 406, 425, 453, 524,
656
Frith, W. P., 522
Full-Lengths, 85 et seq.
Gallantee Showman, The, 279
Garnett, Mrs. Richard, 636
Garrick Club, The, 623
Gertrude's Cherries, 336
Oervaise Skinner, 156
Gipsey of Derncleugh, The, 50-1
Glass, schoolmaster at Southend,
18
Godwin, William, 178, 221 et seq.
Godwin, William, the Younger,
178 222
Golden Calf, The, 207 et seq.
Greenwich Pensioner, The, 85
Grieve, Tom, 307-8
Guild of Literature and Art,
The, 553
Haldane, Lord, 389
Hall, Samuel Carter, 269, 270
Hammond, Jane Matilda, 10,
19
Hammond, William John, 10,
206, 238, 276 et seq., 304,
316
Handbook of Swindling, The,
295
Harley, John Pritt, 13, 17, 21
194, 212
Harrison, W. H„ 266
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 630 et
seq.
Hazard of the Die, The, 251,
260-1
Hazlitt, William, 80
INDEX
667
Heads of the People, 295, 298
et seq.
Heart of Gold, 4, 614 e< seq.
Hearts and Diamonds, 251, 25(3
Hedgehog Letters, The, 382
Heraud, Miss Edith, 556
Heraud, John Abraham, 176,
555 et seq.
Herbert, schoolmaster at Sheer-
ness, 18, 19
Hill, Tom, 82-3
Hodder, George, 319, 326, 373,
446, 486 et seq., 585-6
Holl, Henry, 282
Honeys Every Day Book, 73-4
Hood, Thomas, 279, 333-4, 378,
526
Home, Richard Hengist, 362,
368, 455, 482
Housekeeper, The, 224 et seq.,
499
Howitt, Mary, 464
Howitt, William, 296
Hunt, Leigh, 449 ei seq., 475,
543-6
Illuminated Magazine, The, 345
et seq.
Island; or. Christian and His
Comrades, The, 64
Jack Dolphin, 205
Jerrold, Charles (half-brother).
9, 25, 33 et seq.
Jerrold, Douglas Edmund (son),
76, 88, 294, 538, 549, 552,
563, 585
Jerrold, Douglas William —
birth, 10, 12
childhood, 12 e^ seq.
education, 17, 43
love of the sea, 22, 29, 637
games, 22
early reading, 22, 25-6
on the stage, 23. 53, 276 et
seq., 410, 569
recollections of Edmund
Kean, 23-5
in the Navy, 25-9
and war, 27-8
and the deserter, 28, 412-2
in London, 31, 37 et seq.
Jerrold, Douglas Wm. (cont.) —
apprenticed to printer, 38
early resolve to write, 41
a " printer's pie," 44
early play-writing, 45 et seq.
and Sadlers Wells Theatre,
45 et seq., 62
on The Sunday Monitor, 46,
70
and Samuel Phelps, 52 et seq.,
326
and " last dying speeches,"
58-9
on capital punishment, 59,
515 et seq.
early writing, 60
on Byron, 61
contributes to Mirror of the
Stage, 61 e< seq.
verses by, 65, 67, 84, 87, 180,
263, 275, 291, 512
marriage, 67
contributes to a Belle
Assemblee, 67
and Der Freischutz, 70-1
contributes to Arliss's Literary
Collections, 71
playwright to the Coburg
Theatre, 72 et seq., 92-7
his children, 76
on The Weekly Times, 83
contributes to The Monthly
Magazine, 83
personal descriptions of, 86,
280, 426-9, 523
witticisms by, 88, 126, 146,
176, 180, 230, 239, 250, 282,
314, 497, 522, 527, 586, 619,
630
and the " pig play," 98 et seq.
playwright to the Surrey
Theatre, 103 et seq.
his gain from Black-Eyed
Susan, 125
and the " patent " theatres
151
and Elliston, 162
as journalist, 183, 189, 424
on the state of the drama,
202
writes '' with a purpose," 213,
214, 364-6
668
INDEX
Jerrold, Douglas Wm. [cont.) —
his pseudonyms : " Henry
Brownrigg," 241 ; " Bar-
abbas Whitefeather," and
"John Jackdaw," 295;
" Q," 321, 329
in Paris, 242, 246 et seq., 268
et seq., 290-2, 486 et seq.
on the Examiner, 243-5
illness, 243, 265, 337, 452,
649 et seq.
contributes to Blackwood's
Magazine, 249, 291
as Freemason, 262^
and Charles Dickens, 265,
519, 649 et seq.
contributes to the New
Montlily Magazine, 270
at Boulogne, 293, 635 et seq.
his politics, 295, 434 et seq.
contributes to Punch, 320,
340, 342, 364, 370, 381, 383
et seq. 432, 454, 468
and Rabelais, 339 et seq.
edits the Illuminated Maga-
zine, 345-6, 352, 359, 360,
371, 430
and public speaking, 363^,
401 et seq., 413-14, 460 et
seq. , 596 et seq.
and the Laureateship, 368,
■ 541
in Scotland, 370
contributes to The Stage,
372-3
edits Douglas Jerrold' s Shilling
Magazine, 378 et seq.
at Birmingham, 401 et seq.
at Manchester, 413-14
sub-edits The Daily News,
424
edits Douglas Jerrold' s Weekly
Newspaper, 426
in the Channel Islands, 440,
477, 495
on comic histories, 445
on Leigh Hunt, 450-2
at Malvern, 452^
and the Great Metropolitan
Cattle Market. 458
at the Whittington Club, 460
Jerrold, Douglas Wm. (cant.) —
in Ireland, 506 et seq.
at Chatsworth, 512
on Shakespeare, 524
on art and morals, 526
at Eastbourne, 542 et seq.
his Collected Writings, 559
and the " taxes on know-
ledge," 582 et seq., 587
at the Printers' Pension
Dinner, 585
suggested candidate for Parlia-
ment, 589
his fiftieth birthday, 589
and advertisement by charity,
601
and Sabbath Observance, 603
visit to Switzerland, 604 et
seq.
and Nathaniel Hawthorne,
631 et seq.
adventure at sea, 637 et seq.
and the Reform Club, 645-7
death 655,
funeral, 656
Letters from Douglas Jerrold
to—
Athenceum, The, 543
Bennett, W. C, 563
Buckingham, James Silk,
420
Burslem Mechanics Insti-
tution, 479
Cambridge Garrick Club,
The, 274
Chapman and Hall, 296
Chorley, Henry F., 361,
414, 438, 454, 477,
483
Clarke, Charles and Mary
Cowden, 409, 421, 438,
496, 503, 514, 515, 529,
530, 554, 643
Cooke, T. P., 185, 205
Cooke, Mrs. T. P., 157, 158,
161
Copeland, Elizabeth Sarah,
456, 625
Cunningham, Peter, 562
Daily News, The, 595
Dickens, Charles, 350, 353,
443, 471, 517
INDEX
669
Letters from Douglas Jerrold
(continued) to —
Forster, John, 226, 227,
229, 232, 237, 238, 240,
243, 244, 245, 268, 286,
290, 293, 338, 341, 342,
343, 344, 345, 424, 477,
495, 499, 510, 513, 531,
537, 538, 542, 546, 547,
552, 563, 564, 568, 579,
642
Harrison, W. H., 267
Hill, Rowland, 622
Hodder, George, 373, 446
Jerrold, Mary Ann(wife),487
Jerrold, Mary Ann
(daughter), 635, 648
Kean, Charles, 550
Knight, Charles, 510, 554,
641
Lane, Richard James, 452
Liverpool Journal, The, 431
Lunn, Joseph, 228
Marston, John Westland,548
MitcheU, , 199
M'.tford, Mary Russell, 148
NoveUo, J. Alfred, 582
NoveUo, Sabilla, 433, 505
Nugent, Lord, 453, 550
PhUUps, Henry, 329
Redding, Cyrus, 349
Serle, Thomas James (dedi-
catory), 255
Spencer, Earl, 520
Stirling, James Hutchison,
390
Tatler, The, 166
Times, The, 541
Tomlins, Frederick Guest,
479
Toulmin, Camilla (Mrs.
Newton Crosland), 371
Webster, Benjamin, 287,
335, 370, 440
Whittington Club, The, 472
Whittle, H., 174
Letters to Douglas Jerrold
from —
Blanc, Louis, 626
Blanchard, Laman, 90, 328,
331
Chisholm, Caroline, 601
Letters to Douglas Jerrold
(continued) from —
Cruikshank, George, 486
Dickens, Charles, 346, 354,
374, 442, 443, 447, 457,
516
Dundonald, Earl of, 470
Godwin, William, 221
Hood, Thomas, 334
Hunt, Leigh, 451
Knowles, James Sheridan,
564
Landor, Walter Savage, 578
Martineau, Harriet, 587
Mazzini, Joseph, 528
Mitford, Mary Russell, 147
Norton, Hon. Caroline, 430
PhUlips, Sam., 620
Tait, William, 441
Jerrold, Edward, 34 et seq.
Jerrold, Elizabeth Sarah (sister),
see Copeland.
Jerrold, Henry (brother), 10, 19.
22, 38, 500-3
Jerrold, Jane Matilda (sister),
see Hammond.
Jerrold, Jane Matilda (daughter),
see Mayhew.
Jerrold, Mary (mother), 10, 21,
37, 51-2, 70, 578
Jerrold, Mary Anne (wife), 67-8,
658
Jerrold, Mary Ann (daughter),
76, 205, 291, 330, 433, 471,
478, 550, 605, 659
Jerrold, Robert (half-brother),
4 et seq., 30, 32-3
Jerrold, Samuel (father), 3 et
seq., 30, 37, 38, 45-6, 52
Jerrold, ]\Irs. Samuel (nee Simp-
son), 9
Jerrold, Thomas Serle (son), 76,
228, 320, 554, 605, 625,
654
Jerrold, WiUiam Blanchard
(son), 15, 20, 66, 76, 88,
222, 294, 482, 499, 653
et seq.
Jerrold, Mrs. William Blan-
chard, 499
John Overy, 106 et seq.
Johnson, Jacob, 20
670
INDEX
Kean, Charles, 123, 594, 618
et seg.
Kean, Edmund, 16, 23, 229
Kilpack's Divan, 313-15
Knight, Charles, 413, 506, et
seq., 539, 657
Knight, Joseph, 105
Knowles, James Sheridan, 228,
564 et seq.
Kossuth, Louis, 595 et seq.
Lamb, Charles, 103
Landor, Walter Savage, 578
Law and Lions, 110-12, 275
Leech, John, 280, 298
Lemon, Mark, 495, 657
Life and Adventures of Miss
Robinson Crusoe, The, 432
Linton, William John, 371
Living Skeleton, The, 75
Lloyd, Edward, 579-81
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 579
et seq., 604
London Characters, 11 et seq.
London Magazine, The, 79
Lonely Man of Study, The, 132
Longbottom, family, 10
Love, W. E., " the polyphonist,"
53 et seq.
Lunn, Joseph, 228
Lytton, Lord, 296, 553, 569
Mackay, Charles, 631 et seq.,
645-7
Macklin, Charles, 2
Maclise, Daniel, 406, 425
Macready, W. C, 568
Maginn, William, 132-4
Man for the Ladies, The, 278
Man Made of Money, The, 492-4
Man's An Ass, The, 251, 261-2
Marston, John Westland, 548,
637
Martha Willis, 181 ei seq.
Martineau, Harriet, 539, 587
Mate, , of the Margate
Theatre, 3
Mayhew, Athol, 248
May hew, Henry, 134, 247 el seq.,
285, 308, 322, 372, 529,
547
Mayhew, Horace, 654, 657
Mayhew, Jane, 76, 372, 478
Meadows, Kenny, 65-6, 179,
294, 298
Men of Character, 282 et seq.
Meteyard, Eliza, 437
Milnes, Richard Monckton, 656
Mirror of the Stage, The, 11, 61,
63, 65
Mitford, Mary Russell, 84, 146
et seq.
Monthly Chronicle, The, 293
Monthly Magazine, The, 83
et seq.
Monthly Mirror, The, 15
Moon, Sir James, 623
More Frightened than Hurt, 45
et seq.
Morris, , of the Haymarket
Theatre, 239 et seq.
Morton, Thomas, 230
Mother, The, 288-90
Mulberry Club, The, 178 et seq.,
268 357—8
Museum' Club, The, 452, 521
et seq.
Mutiny at the Nore, The, 162
Nell Gtvynne, 214 ei seq., 226
New Monthly Magazine, The,
270
Norton, Hon. Caroline, 430
NoveUo, Sabilla, 432-3
Nugent, Lord, 453, 537, 550, 553
Our Club, 629, 637
Oxberrj', William, 11, 15, 38
Painter of Ghent, The, 278
Paxton, Sir Joseph, 512, 554,
625, 657
Perils of Pippins, The, 279
Phelps, Samuel, 38, 52 et seq.,
326
Poe, Edgar Allan, 362
Poole, John, 81-2, 488
Popular Felons, 80
Press-Gang, The, 162, 164
Prideaux, W. H., 460
Prisoner of War, The, 322 et seq.
Procter, Bryan Waller, 23, 241
Punch, 134, 189, 320
Punch in London, 189
INDEX
671
Queen's Wedding Rinq, The,
297
Rationals, The, 305 et seq.
Reach, Angus B., 436-7, 439
Redding, Cyrus, 349, 353 et seq.
Rent Day, The, 191 e< seq.
Retired from Business, 551, 569
et seq.
Reynolds, Frederick, 255
Richardson, Sir Benjamin Ward,
628
Richland, , of the Dover
Theatre, 3 et seq.
Roacius, The, 16
Russell, James, 5, 16
Russell, Lord John, 539, 549,
552
RusseU, W. H., 647 et seq.
St. Cupid, 590 et seq.
St. Giles and St. Jarnes, 381
Sala, George Augustus, 315, 419,
494
Sally in Our Alley, 153 et seq.
Scenes from the Rejected
Comedies, 357
Schoolfellows, The, 251 et seq.
Scott, Miss, 114, 116, 127,
145
Serle, Thomas James, 228,
255
Seven Ages, The, 66
Shakespeare Society, The, 321
Sheemess, Theatre at, 13 et seq.,
30
Shelley, Mrs., 220
Sick Oiant and the Doctor Dwarf,
The, 555-6
Smith, Albert, 523
Smith, E. T., 601
Smith, Orrin, 280, 294, 298
Smoked Miser, The, 62 et seq.
Some Account of a Stage Devil,
123
Southend, Theatre at, 17 et seq.,
31
Spendthrift, The, 291, 310 e<
seq.
"Splendid Strollers, The," 408
et seq., 474 el seq., 553, 674
et seq.
Stanfield, Clarkson, 26, 195,
275
Statue-Lover, The, 89
Stirling, James Hutchison, 389
et seq., 426 et seq., 437,
469
Stone, Frank, 477
Story of a Feather, The, 342, 364
et seq.
Surrey Theatre, The, 97, 103
et seq.
Stvamp Hall, 229
Swann, Mary Ann, see Jerrold,
Mary Ann (wife).
Tait, William, 441
Thackeray, Thomas James, 202
Thackeray, William Makepeace,
247 et seq., 269, 284, 469,
480, 541, 581, 603, 627,
645-7, 656
Theatrical Inquisitor, The, 21
Thomas a Becket, 136 et seq.
Tidswell, Miss, 229
Time Works Wonders, 392 et
seq.
Tomlins, Frederick Guest, 322,
480, 488
Toulmin, Camilla (Mrs. Newton
Crosland), 371
Tower of Lochlain, The, 93
T ividdlethumb Town, 484-5
Vandenhoff, George, 623
Vidocq, the French Police Spy,
129-31
Vizetelly, Henry, 98, 279
Wakley, Thomas, 183
Warren, Samuel, 250
Watts-Dunton, Mr. Theodore,
139^0
Webbe, Cornelius, 95, 145
Webster, Benjamin, 287, 353
et seq., 370
Wedding Ooivn, The, 231
Wemyss, F. C, 41
White Milliner, The, 317
Whittington Club, The, 436,
456, 458 et seq., 471 et seq.
Whittle, H., 174
Wieland, , 123
672 INDEX
Wilkie, Sir David, 191, 195 Witchfinder, The, 149, 151-2
Wilkinson, , actor, 13, 17, Wives by Advertisement, 93
18, 40-1, 45 et seq., 47, 49, Wordsworth, William, 525, 541
83 Word with Bunn, A, 481
Wilson, Erasmus, 499, 611 Word with " Punch," A, 418-19
Windsor Castle Theatricals, 499,
591 Yapp, G. W., 472
Printed in Great Britain bv Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
brunswick st., stamford st., s.b., and bungay, suffolk.
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